Twenty productions from four hundred entries
The 33rd Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre (CIFET) opened on 1 September 2026 at the Cairo Opera House's Main Hall and runs through 8 September, according to Egyptian Gazette. A jury selected 20 productions from more than 400 submissions for this year's programme, representing 14 countries and spanning drama, contemporary dance, puppetry, visual theatre and multimedia performance, the paper reported.
The festival opened with "Haya" ("Life"), a movement-based production exploring choice and human existence, directed by Karima Badir (also transliterated Karima Bedeir), according to Egyptian Gazette.
A theme centred on geography and identity
This year's theme, "Geo: Theatrical Experimentation," examines connections between experimentation, geography, identity and cultural, social and political contexts across workshops, seminars, residencies and international collaborations, Ahram Online reported. The paper described the eight-day programme as bringing together theatrical productions from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Arab world for performances, workshops and discussions across Cairo.
Among the competition entries, Ahram Online reported that Jordan's "You Since Yesterday," directed by Abdulsalam Qubailat, addresses trauma from the 1967 Six-Day War, while "Salma, Mon Amour," an Egypt-France co-production directed by Ahmed El-Attar, explores family disorientation following the 2023 Gaza conflict. Egypt's own entries in competition include "What Do the Survivors Dream?," directed by Samah Hamdi, and "The Book of the Dead / The Missing Name," directed by Ezzat Ismail, the paper reported.
Other productions take up freedom and social control, according to Ahram Online: Tunisia's "Show Off," directed by Taher Issa Ben Larbi, critiques fashion and consumption; Britain's "A Night's Game," staged by the company Alleyne Dance, examines the psychological effects of incarceration and marks renewed cooperation between the British Council and CIFET after more than 15 years; and Germany's "The Children of Today," directed by Charles A. Washington, imagines a post-capitalist future. A Spain-Morocco co-production, "The Garden of the Hesperides," directed by Alicia Soto, takes up female emancipation through a dance-theatre work built around gardens shared across cultures and generations, the paper reported.
The programme also revisits classic narratives of love and mortality, Ahram Online reported. Russia's "Poor Liza," directed by Marc Rozovsky, retells Nikolai Karamzin's tragic tale of a peasant woman, while Belarus's "Zhenya + Tanya = Love," directed by Vera Polyakova-Makei, reinterprets Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin." Switzerland's "Icaro," directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca, is set inside a hospital where performers draw audience members in as temporary roommates.
The Arab competition features four productions, the paper reported: Jordan's "You Since Yesterday" and Tunisia's "Show Off" alongside the UAE's "The Depths of the Soul," directed by Abdulrahman El-Mulla, and Saudi Arabia's "The Revivers," directed by Ahmed El-Ahmari, which examines death rituals.
A jury and a ceremony honouring theatre veterans
The festival is headed by Sameh Mahran, with the competition jury chaired by Egyptian actor Riad al-Kholy (also transliterated Ryad El-Khouly), according to Ahram Online. The paper named the remaining jury members as Bahraini actor Khaled El-Ruwaie, American producer Patrizia Acerra, Tunisian director Mohamed Mounir El-Araki, Egyptian director Mohamed El-Gharabawy, French-Burkinabe director Hassane Kassi Kouyaté and North Macedonian director Sasho Ognenovski.
Actress Nourhan Shoeib hosted the opening ceremony, which honoured Egyptian artists Hamza al-Eily and Tarek al-Dwiry alongside international figures including New Zealand choreographer Lemi Ponifasio, American director Patricia Lombardo Akira and Britain's Scott Graham, Egyptian Gazette reported. Acting Culture Minister Abdelaziz Konsowa, who also heads higher education and scientific research, inaugurated the ceremony before an audience that included ambassadors and foreign delegations, according to the paper, and festival president Sameh Mahran also addressed the gathering.
Seven workshops and a week of panels
The programme includes seven workshops led by Egyptian and international practitioners, Ahram Online reported. They include:
- "Beginning," taught by Ahmed Kamal, covering acting fundamentals
- "From Text to Actor," led by Sulayman El-Bassam, tracing the shift from writing to performance
- Sessions on the connection between memory and the body, led by Tammy Ryan, and on movement-based storytelling, led by Gillian Rhodes
- A workshop on contemporary theatre poetics, politics and corporeality, led by Greek scholar Savvas Patsalidis
- "Performance Creations in Open Spaces," a pre-festival workshop led by Paco Gámez that culminates in a public performance
- "Commedia dell'arte," led by Alessio Nardin, with UNIC support
The festival's panel discussions include "From Cairo to World Stages" on 4 September, with Ahmed El-Attar and Omar Ghayatt discussing Egyptian theatre's international collaborations, and "Programming International Theatre Festivals: Curating, Selecting and Distributing Performing Arts" on 6 September, held in two sessions, Ahram Online reported. The paper said the first session features John McGrath, Hassane Kassi Kouyaté and Ahmed El-Attar, and the second features Cathy Costain and Isabel Moria.
Egyptian Theatre Day, marked on 5 September, honours five directors — Hossam El Din Salah, Hisham Gomaa, Hamdy Hussein, Abir Ali and Mohamed Gabr — while separate "Giving Back" sessions honour theatre practitioners who have died, including, this year, Egyptian director Saad Ardash, according to Ahram Online.
Four decades since 1988
CIFET was founded in Cairo in 1988 by former culture minister Farouk Hosny, according to Egyptian Gazette, putting the 33rd edition within the festival's fourth decade. The opening ceremony included a screening of a documentary titled "The Founder," tracing the festival's origins with commentary from Hosny, the paper reported.
Konsowa told the opening ceremony that experimentation represents an ongoing search for new theatrical language and a way of addressing fundamental generational questions, and pledged continued government support for Egyptian theatre across every generation and artistic direction, according to the paper.
