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Graduating Class of Film Students Named 'Samir Seif Class' at Jesuit Cairo

Graduating Class of Film Students Named 'Samir Seif Class' at Jesuit Cairo
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Graduating Class of Film Students Named 'Samir Seif Class' at Jesuit Cairo

Graduating Class of Film Students Named 'Samir Seif Class' at Jesuit Cairo

With a flood of love, the name of the late Egyptian director, Samir Seif, echoed through the walls of the Scientific and Cultural Renaissance Association (Jesuit Cairo) during the graduation ceremony of the 11th batch of the association's Film School, after choosing the name of the late director of this year’s graduates, “Samir Seif graduating class.” The Film School, located in the Faggala neighborhood in the center of the Egyptian capital, is one of the most prestigious institutions founded by the Al-Nahda Association (Cairo Jesuit).

The film school offers full scholarships to accepted students, and it provides them with the opportunity to learn filmmaking and film production using alternative methods. The school was established in 2005 as one of the components of the project "Supporting freedom of artistic expression" in Cairo and Upper Egypt. In addition to the Film School, the Jesuit Association also has established a number of programs aimed at film education. Including the establishment of the Documentary Film School in Upper Egypt, and Stories of the South workshops, which provide a set of workshops on film-making in the south.

The school takes a holistic approach to filmmaking, so that trainees can become well versed in all fields and stages of filmmaking. The program consists of lectures, training, activities and group discussions with filmmakers and specialists in various artistic and intellectual fields, in addition to a set of practical workshops in the fields of cinematography, scenario writing, photography, sound, editing, production, distribution, and directing.

According to Dr. Marwa Abdullah Al-Sayed, director of the Jesuit Film School, this year’s graduating class was named after the late Samir Seif in honor of the role he played teaching this class’s students the fundamentals of filmmaking in the months leading up to his sudden death. Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, she says, “As soon as we contacted him, he expressed readiness to support the film school, despite his great commitments and preoccupations during that period, and he believed in supporting the film school and its students. So, we named this year’s graduating class after him, in an attempt to express our gratitude and our recognition of his generosity to students, noting that this is the first time in the history of the film school that a class of graduates is named after a filmmaker."

Samir Seif died in December of last year, at the age of 72, and many of his movies are considered milestones in the history of Egyptian cinema; including The suspect, A stranger in my house, Pleasure market and His Excellency the Minister. In addition to directing, the late director was also taught at several universities.

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Sudan Refugees Face Cholera Outbreak with Nothing but Lemons for Medicine 

Sudanese residents gather to receive free meals in El-Fasher, a city besieged by Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for more than a year, in Darfur region, on August 11, 2025. (AFP)
Sudanese residents gather to receive free meals in El-Fasher, a city besieged by Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for more than a year, in Darfur region, on August 11, 2025. (AFP)
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Sudan Refugees Face Cholera Outbreak with Nothing but Lemons for Medicine 

Sudanese residents gather to receive free meals in El-Fasher, a city besieged by Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for more than a year, in Darfur region, on August 11, 2025. (AFP)
Sudanese residents gather to receive free meals in El-Fasher, a city besieged by Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for more than a year, in Darfur region, on August 11, 2025. (AFP)

In the cholera-stricken refugee camps of western Sudan, every second is infected by fear. Faster than a person can boil water over an open flame, the flies descend and everything is contaminated once more.

Cholera is ripping through the camps of Tawila in Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of people have been left with nothing but the water they can boil, to serve as both disinfectant and medicine.

"We mix lemon in the water when we have it and drink it as medicine," said Mona Ibrahim, who has been living for two months in a hastily-erected camp in Tawila.

"We have no other choice," she told AFP, seated on the bare ground.

Adam is one of nearly half a million people who sought shelter in and around Tawila, from the nearby besieged city of El-Fasher and the Zamzam displacement camp in April, following attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with Sudan's regular army since April 2023.

The first cholera cases in Tawila were detected in early June in the village of Tabit, about 25 kilometers south, said Sylvain Penicaud, a project coordinator for French charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

"After two weeks, we started identifying cases directly in Tawila, particularly in the town's displacement camps," he told AFP.

In the past month, more than 1,500 cases have been treated in Tawila alone, he said, while the UN's children agency says around 300 of the town's children have contracted the disease since April.

Across North Darfur state, more than 640,000 children under the age of five are at risk, according to UNICEF.

By July 30, there were 2,140 infections and at least 80 deaths across Darfur, UN figures show.

Cholera is a highly contagious bacterial infection that causes severe diarrhea and spreads through contaminated water and food.

Causing rapid dehydration, it can kill within hours if left untreated, yet it is preventable and usually easily treatable with oral rehydration solutions.

More severe cases require intravenous fluids and antibiotics.

Ibrahim Adam Mohamed Abdallah, UNICEF's executive director in Tawila, told AFP his team "advises people to wash their hands with soap, clean the blankets and tarps provided to them and how to use clean water".

But in the makeshift shelters of Tawila, patched together from thin branches, scraps of plastic and bundles of straw, even those meagre precautions are out of reach.

Insects cluster on every barely washed bowl, buzzing over the scraps of already meagre meals.

Haloum Ahmed, who has been suffering from severe diarrhea for three days, said "there are so many flies where we live".

Water is often fetched from nearby natural sources -- often contaminated -- or from one of the few remaining shallow, functional wells.

It "is extremely worrying," said MSF's Penicaud, but "those people have no (other) choice".

Sitting beside a heap of unwashed clothes on the dusty ground, Ibrahim said no one around "has any soap".

"We don't have toilets -- the children relieve themselves in the open," she added.

"We don't have food. We don't have pots. No blankets -- nothing at all," said Fatna Essa, another 50-year-old displaced woman in Tawila.

The UN has repeatedly warned of food insecurity in Tawila, where aid has trickled in, but nowhere near enough to feed the hundreds of thousands who go hungry.

Sudan's conflict, now in its third year, has killed tens of thousands and created the world's largest displacement and hunger crises, according to the United Nations.

In Tawila, health workers are trying to contain the cholera outbreak , but resources are stretched thin.

MSF has opened a 160-bed cholera treatment center in Tawila, with plans to expand to 200 beds.

A second unit has also been set up in Daba Nyra, one of the most severely affected camps. But both are already overwhelmed, said Penicaud.

Meanwhile, aid convoys remain largely paralyzed by the fighting and humanitarian access has nearly ground to a halt.

Armed groups, particularly the RSF, have blocked convoys from reaching those in need.

Meanwhile, the rainy season, which peaks this month, may bring floodwaters that further contaminate water supplies and worsen the crisis.

Any flooding could "heighten the threat of disease outbreaks", warned UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

The World Health Organization said last week that cholera "has swept across Sudan, with all states reporting outbreaks". It said nearly 100,000 cases had been reported across the country since July 2024.

UNICEF also reported over 2,408 deaths across 17 of Sudan's 18 states since August 2024.