Popes on the big screen: how cinema has depicted the pontiff

Al Majalla gives an overview of some of the most noteworthy films and TV shows about the pope

Shadi Alaa Aldin

An Artist's Responsibility

[caption id="attachment_55231689" align="alignnone" width="620" caption="Hand in Hand acrylic on canvas (Mohamed Abla)"][/caption] On 10 May 2012, a newly launched exhibition hall ARTSPACE London, a…

Ati Metwaly

Egypt's Desert Gem

[caption id="attachment_55231655" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="The rising moon stands up in clear skies next to a weathered building in ruins of the ancient fortification of Shali"][…

Alastair Beach

A View from the Casbah

[caption id="attachment_55231632" align="alignnone" width="620" caption="A girl looks from her house's window over a street in the Casbah district in Algiers"][/caption] We start at the highest…

Kate Knight

The Orientalist Connector

[caption id="attachment_55231520" align="alignnone" width="607" caption="The Connoisseurs by Gyula Tornai"][/caption] Egyptian collector of Orientalist art, Shafik Gabr, believes that Orientalism…

Juliet Highet

Too Good to be True

[caption id="attachment_55231473" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="A man reads Al-Ahram newspaper in a backstreet cafe just off Cairo's Tahrir square"][/caption] Why let facts get in…

Alastair Beach

Resilience and Injustice

[caption id="attachment_55231405" align="alignnone" width="620" caption="A scene from Promised Lands (Susan Sontag, 1974)"][/caption] From 20 April through 3 May, the Palestine Film Festival brings…

Noam Schimmel

Under the Skin of Hamas

[inset_left]Hamas: From Resistance to Government By Paola Caridi Seven Stories Press, New York [/inset_left]In this new book, Italian journalist and historian Paola Caridi sets herself an ambitious…

Alex Edwards

Islamists on Art

[caption id="attachment_55231344" align="alignnone" width="620" caption="Adel Imam accepts the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Doha Tribeca Film Festival"][/caption] Adel Imam’s case is one…

Ati Metwaly

Confronting Paradise

[caption id="attachment_55231107" align="alignnone" width="620" caption="Laila Shawa with her work (Credit: Amy Assad)"][/caption] “Me being a Palestinian, I guess, may have something to do with the…

Amy Assad

Art & Conflict - The Case of Syria

[caption id="attachment_55230713" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="Live music from the duo Fantazia"][/caption] At a time when diplomacy and journalism seem not to be doing much for Syria,…

Helena Alves