The Power of Culture

As of July 2010 The Power of Culture will no longer be updated until further notice. The platform unfortunately can’t be maintained without funding by organizations who attach importance to such an initiative.

Rather quickly after the Iranian revolution, there was a genuine revival of classical music from Iran. Of course, there is also pop music in Iran, but people are less familiar with it. But that is about to change.

When Mohamed Al-Daradji returned to his native Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein, he was filled with desire for revenge. He incorporated his emotions in a film in which, surpisingly, mutual understanding is the theme.

Shahidul Alam is a photo journalist and a human rights activist in Bangladesh. A day after the police made the opening of his exhibition Crossfire impossible he wrote a personal report for the Power of Culture.

"The Monument lasts for only 70 minutes, but after it has ended some spectators are so emotional that they stay after the show to discuss it for up to three hours," says Jennifer Capraru, the director of the play that is being performed in Rwanda.

What do you do if you suddenly wake up after sleeping in a cave for 309 years? That is what happens to the characters in Walid Al Alphy's stage play People of the cave, performed on 25 September 2009 in the Rotterdam theatre.

With his poems, essays and short stories, the Tibetan poet-activist voices the outrage of the Tibetan refugees in India about the situation in their country of origin.