Cairo International Film Festival dedicated to Abdel-Aziz

Annual film festival to screen over 200 movies.

The Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), which opens on 15 November, is dedicated to the recently deceased Egyptian actor Mahmoud Abdel-Aziz.

The opening ceremony of the 38th edition of the festival will feature a documentary on the career of the 70-year-old actor who died on 12 November.

Abdel-Aziz, one of Egypt's best known television and film actors, rose to stardom in the 1950s and 1960s with the television series Rafat El-Haggan, before gaining new audiences with 1980s movies such as El-Aar (The Shame) and El-Keif (A Pleasurable Habit).

The 2016 festival programme, which runs until 24 November, features a special section devoted to Shakespeare, on the 400th anniversary of his death, as well as a programme spotlighting Chinese cinema.

Based at the Cairo Opera House, the festival also has screenings scheduled at the Odeon Cinema and Cinema Karim.

For the second year in a row the CIFF is directed by Magda Wassef, former head of the Luxor African Film Festival, with film critic Youssef Cherif Rizkallah as artistic director.

The festival, which is the oldest of its kind in the Middle East and Africa, was cancelled in 2011 and 2013 due to political instability in the Egyptian capital.

For details of 2016 programme see CIFF website.