The cultural crackdown in Cairo seems to be on pause this April. After escalating censorship in the city in the past months, the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF, until 22 April) has opened with little interference from state authorities. Although the festival’s director, Ahmed El Attar, says that the festival has become increasingly aware of tightening restrictions since 2012, he says the regulations have not been entirely unreasonable. “The issue is the bureaucracy of paperwork and permissions—there’s no information about what needs to be done, especially when the rules change,” El Attar says.
D-CAF launched in April 2011, just months after the uprisings that saw Egypt’s then-president Mubarak step down. The festival points to the turbulent context of its inaugural edition by focusing on public space and performance, with venues this year including Horreya garden, the Egyptian stock market, local cinemas, theatres, shops and cafes. “The festival is about being in the city and bringing art to the urban environment—taking back the space not just politically but also creatively,” El Attar says. The festival’s wide range of venues can in part be attributed to D-CAF’s co-founder and main corporate sponsor, Al-Ismaelia for Retail Investment, which has been buying property in downtown Cairo since 2008.
D-CAF has an ambitious three-week programme this year that spans contemporary music, film, visual arts and, for the first time, literature. Unlike previous years, no events will be taking place in other Egyptian cities, but parallel shows will be held in Lebanon. The performances in Beirut are designed to include Syrian performance artists who are routinely denied entry into Egypt, despite the festival’s efforts to include them in their programming.
The festival’s only hiccup so far has been a customs seizure of a roll of film containing two French films. It is unclear why the films were stopped and they have been rescheduled for a later screening. The stepped-up restrictions on artistic freedom that saw raids on the city’s Townhouse Gallery and the Merit publishing house, among others, in December 2015 have been attributed to the five-year anniversary of the Egyptian 2011 revolution—which passed by surprisingly calmly on 25 January this year—and a consolidation of political power by the current ruling party led by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
Initial responses to D-CAF’s programme this year have been positive, with the opening concert on 31 March attracting around 2,000 visitors. El Attar has big plans for the festival including a coinciding edition in Alexandria and programming for disabled audiences, so long as state censorship does not interfere.