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Known in the Arab world as the first best selling author of horror and fantasy, Ahmed Khaled Towfik remains largely unknown in the Western world but if producer and director Rami Imam has any say in the matter, that might all change very soon.

While at Cannes, Imam announced that he was in the process of adapting Towfik's best selling novel "Utopia" which was translated into English in 2011. The story unfolds in 2030 in Egypt of an alternate reality. In this world, the wealthy live in a city called Utopia while "The Others," the poor working class, live in Cairo. The story follows two well-to-do Utopians as they head into Cairo on a sort of "hunting" trip.

I'm not familiar with Towfik's work though [Continued ...]...

The well that is Egyptian sci-fi cinema isn't exactly overflowing, or even half-full (sci-fi movies made by Egyptian filmmakers, that tell stories centered around Egyptian characters); and as a lover of sci-fi movies in general, who also wants to see more filmmakers of the diaspora work within the genre, this project immediately had my attention! In a deal announced at Cannes (which kicked off today), a film adaptation of Egyptian author Ahmed Khaled Towfik's 2010 bestselling novel (also hailed a masterpiece), titled "Utopia" is in the works.  The apocalyptic tale will be adapted by Egyptian filmmaker Rami Imam. The relatively-short (192-pages) novel is set...

Omar Sharif Jr., grandson of the Doctor Zhivago star, is currently in the news because he has come out as a gay man who happens to be half-Jewish (on his mother's side) in an essay found in The Advocate — one accompanied by a photograph showing a hairy, buffed-up, bare-chested man (Sharif Jr.?) holding the Egyptian flag. In the essay, the 29-year-old Montreal-born actor explains he wrote the piece out of "fear for my country, fear for my family, and fear for myself." As per Sharif Jr., the problem is that in Egypt "the full spectrum of equal and human rights are now wedge issues used by both the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces and the Islamist parties, when they should be regarded as universal truths." Further down in his piece, he adds: And so I hesitantly confess: I am Egyptian, I am half Jewish, and I am gay.