Good morning, lovely people, and welcome to the new Weekend. For years, the Weekend Edition has been shaped as reflective, a single source readers can enjoy when the work week is behind them. That goal remains intact, but we’ve rebuilt the edition around it, and starting today, the Weekend arrives with a sharper sense of who it’s for.
We’ve spent the past few months asking a simple question: what does a weekend read owe someone who runs things? The answer wasn’t more to read through — it was “do less,” but choose more deliberately and go deeper. So the Weekend is moving away from one weekly guide toward a rotating monthly format built around four anchors, each with its own job.
Founder of the Month gives you a candid, in-depth founder conversation told in the third person — the story behind the builder, not just the business. The Spend takes the things you already know how to buy and consume — where to eat, what to wear, where to stay — and tells you what’s behind them: the market dynamics, the business models, and the economics that decide what lands on your plate, in your wardrobe, and on your household budget. The Long View is a monthly essay covering something worth thinking about — not news, just a question we’re thinking about, examined properly. And The Enterprise Weekend Guide stays, but in a more elevated form: still reported, still useful, curated for the life you actually lead.
What ties them together is the same thing we promised in the new EnterprisePM: your time is limited, so our choices are intentional. Nothing here is filler, and we aim to deliver reads you won’t find anywhere else.
The same team behind the new PM built this one too — Ziyad, Amani, Nagla, Nayra, and Nadine — and we’re grateful once again. And thank you for reading us at the exact time you could just as easily disconnect and not click. We hope the new Weekend earns your time.
- Zainab
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The weather’s playing nice this weekend, and the events slate has a bit of heritage crafts, Arabic pop classics, and Friday-night stand-up to fill it.
☀️ THE WEATHER THIS WEEKEND-
This weekend brings a pleasant balance of weather, starting today with a sunny high of 30°C and a clear nighttime low of 20°C. Tomorrow brings similar conditions, with temperatures peaking at 30°C under hazy sunshine before dropping to a mostly clear 19°C overnight, according to our favorite weather app.
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND-
Turathna Exhibition returns this year at the Egypt International Exhibition Center in New Cairo to celebrate Om El Donia’s heritage, still running until tomorrow. The exhibition brings together traditional crafts and handmade creations from artists across the country — from handmade carpets and kilims, ceramics and pottery, woodwork, and brass and leather products to khayamiya, food, and much more. The exhibition runs daily from 11am to 11pm, and entry is at no charge.
In the mood for a night of Arabic pop classics? Moustafa Amar is taking over CJC 610’s Ma Yatloboh El Mostameoun tonight for a sing-along session of crowd favorites and beloved hits. Doors open at 8pm, with tickets available on TicketsMarché.
Up for some Friday night stand-up? Comedian Alaa El Sheikh is bringing his latest show Playcrowd Volume 2 to New Cairo’s Teatro 90 tonight at 8pm. As the name suggests, expect a show full of his signature crowd work and spontaneous live interactions with the audience. Tickets are available on TicketsMarché.
LATER IN THE WEEK-
Egyptian soprano Fatma Said is heading back to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM). Said, who headlined the GEM’s grand opening ceremony, will be taking the stage on Thursday, 29 October, accompanied by conductor Nader Abbassi. Alongside beautiful vocals and encores of beloved performances (watch, runtime: 5:05), we’re expecting the evening to include tracks from the soprano’s upcoming album, The Pyramids Recital, which releases on 9 October. The evening kicks off at 9pm — tickets can be purchased through TicketsMarché.
At home, the USD jumped to EGP 55 for the first time, while Banque du Caire’s IPO and MNT-Halan’s EGX debuts drew strong demand. Abroad, cost-of-living protests swept Europe, Russia-Ukraine peace talks stalled and restarted, and big-ticket tech and business transactions made headlines.
LAST WEEK IN 3 MINS-
The headlines at home this week included a mixed bag of a new record high for the greenback against the EGP, Banque du Caire’s IPO, and MNT-Halan’s first day of trading, among other news.
EXCHANGE RATE-
The USD crossed the EGP 55 threshold yesterday, hitting a record high. The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) quoted USD 1 at EGP 55.24 for buying and EGP 55.38 for selling, while the National Bank of Egypt quoted EGP 55.25 and EGP 55.35. Former head of the Industrial Development Bank Maged Fahmy tells EnterpriseAM that “the move was expected given rising geopolitical tensions in the region, higher global energy prices, and a growing external debt service burden.”
PRIVATIZATION WATCH-
Banque du Caire (BdC) has lined up foreign buyers formore than half of its IPO, giving the state-owned lender an early vote of confidence from institutions it courted during its international roadshows. Four cornerstone investors have committed up to USD 256 mn to the offering, with UK hedge fund Helikon, London-based Redwheel, Africa-focused Sustainable Capital, and the UAE’s Waha Investments all backing the IPO.
BdC’s private placement, which accounts for 95% of the shares on offer, was covered within hours of the subscription opening on Monday, the first day of the offering. Orders came in from investors in the US, Europe, Africa, and the Gulf, alongside institutions that had agreed to allocations during the roadshows. The four anchor investors can take just under two-thirds of the tranche at most, so other institutions must have participated to get it fully covered, by our estimate. It’s not yet clear how many times the book was covered or how much demand the retail tranche drew.
MEANWHILE- A 20% stake in Misr Life Ins. is tentatively set foroffering in December. The government postponed the sale to make room for the Bank du Caire IPO. The company’s fair value study is still being prepared, and the December date remains provisional, depending on coordination between the Investment Ministry, the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, and the offering’s managers.
ALSO- MNT-Halan’s sharesclosed up 6.9% at EGP 26.20 apieceon their first day of trading on Tuesday, valuing the fintech’s Egyptian arm at some EGP 41.9 bn and shrugging off a market rattled by regional tensions.
REAL ESTATE-
Talaat Moustafa Groupsigned multiple agreements with the government, with the combined investments reaching about EGP 11 tn (c. USD 206 bn). The agreements are for developing four mixed-use projects in Madinaty, Alexandria, Abu Qir, and the North Coast. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi witnessed the announcement at the Egypt 2026 Forum in the New Capital.
CAPITAL MARKETS-
More companies could soon be allowed toset up and manage investment funds in Egypt. The Financial Regulatory Authority is working with the EGX on amending Article 29 of the Capital Market Law so that limited liability companies and simple limited partnerships can get licensed to form funds. Right now, that license is reserved for joint-stock companies and partnerships limited by shares.
INDUSTRY-
Fertiglobe, the Adnoc-controlled fertilizer maker, isstudying a complex worth more than USD 1.5 bn in Ain Sokhnato produce diammonium phosphate (DAP). The plant would make 1.3 mn tons a year of DAP, one of the world’s most widely used fertilizers, made by reacting phosphoric acid with ammonia. Commercial production is targeted for 2031.
ENERGY-
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a group of development lendersassembled up to USD 566 mn in debt for Nefer Minya, the 1.2 GWp solar plant with 600 MWh of battery storage in Minya that will be the largest in Egypt and Africa. The package covers about three-quarters of the project’s USD 764 mn cost, leaving the two sponsors to fund roughly USD 198 mn in equity, by our math.
Banque du Caire is going public in a landmark IPO. On this episode of Making It, Hussein Abaza, the bank’s chief executive, joins Patrick to discuss the strategy behind the sale.
This week’s headlines were dominated by protests over economic pressures across Europe, developments in the Russia-Ukraine war, and a fresh batch of business and tech updates. Here’s the rundown.
Protests involving around 550k people in France— driven by rising fuel prices, the cost of living, and deteriorating public services — led to around 1.8k arrests after violence spread across Paris, Marseille, Lille, and Lyon, with rioters starting fires, torching cars, looting shops, and clashing with police. The country’s weekend of riots and violent protests prompted Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez to offer his resignation, saying police had lost control, which President Emmanuel Macron rejected, instead pointing to “intelligence and foresight failings.”
Protests fueled by economic frustrations in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, and Albania soon followed as unrest took over the continent. The middle of the week saw the protests largely subside in France after authorities implemented stricter security measures, following calls from Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to impose an 11 pm curfew in several parts of Paris and rule out blanket curfews across entire cities. Amid multiple crises and mounting fiscal pressures, France’s yield on its 10-year government bonds hit 5% for the first time since 2002, reflecting growing investor concerns over the country’s public finances.
Meanwhile, on the Russia-Ukraine front, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending most of the Russia sanctions in a bipartisan law he approved last month, as he seeks to end the war in Ukraine and contain fuel prices ahead of the midterm elections. Tensions between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Trump emerged as Ukraine defied the proposed ceasefire with Russia when it launched one of its largest drone attacks on a key oil terminal earlier in the week. Tensions appeared to ease between the two leaders when the US resumed sharing intelligence with Kyiv on Russian missile strikes following a meeting with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Norway.
Reports floated of Russian President Vladimir Putin considering a three-way summit with Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to negotiate an end to the war, potentially without Ukraine on the table. Later in the week, Putin hosted Witkoff in St. Petersburg to discuss potential ceasefire terms with Ukraine, where Russia agreed to release 74-year-old US citizen Stephen Hubbard after four years in captivity. Peace hopes were dealt a blow overnight on Wednesday after a massive Russian missile attack on Kyiv killed two people, wounded 22, and hit civilian and energy infrastructure.
CLOSER TO HOME- The US Department of State made an order to withdraw non-essential staff and their family members from its embassy in Riyadh as Iran-backed Houthi forces intensify their attacks, following a string of near-daily attacks against the kingdom.
IN TECH NEWS- Anthropic is lining up a USD 60 bn debt package to help fund its purchase of about 1.5 GW of Google-developed custom semiconductors known as tensor processing units. Meanwhile, AI cloud computing company Nscale is negotiating to sell computing power to Anthropic — a transaction that could be worth approximately USD 45 bn for a second facility at Nscale’s Monarch data center campus in West Virginia. Also, the US banned Chinese AI firm DeepSeek and technology built using its models from civilian government systems, citing security concerns without specifying the risks.
AND- A discovery of critical vulnerabilities in PHP, an open-source programming language used to power around 70% of websites and web applications, forced websites worldwide to shut down on Thursday. Governments worldwide issued warnings about the vulnerabilities, which could allow hackers to access sensitive data, launch large-scale cyberattacks, and disrupt essential services.
This year’s El Gouna Film Festival wraps up tonight, but behind its red carpet sits an industry where a hit film at home can still lose money. A mid-budget Egyptian feature now costs an average of EGP 70-80 mn to make, Prodigy Films founder and Executive Producer Mostafa Faramawy tells EnterpriseAM, but producers see only 40% of what it earns at the local box office. The other 60% goes to exhibitors, distributors, taxes, and theatrical overhead. By that math, a EGP 75 mn film needs close to EGP 190 mn in Egyptian ticket sales just to break even, a gross very few local films ever reach.
And the bill keeps growing. Some 15 Egyptian films cost a combined EGP 2 bn (c. USD 40 mn) to produce in 2025, or roughly EGP 133 mn apiece. Producer Shahinaz El Akkad told Youm7 last year that production costs have quadrupled, without mentioning a time frame: the money that once paid for three or four of her films now only covers one.
What it takes to shoot a film
It starts with a star. Egyptian audiences buy tickets for the lead actor, so the lead actor gets paid first. With an A-lister like Karim Abdel Aziz or Mona Zaki, “that single lead actor’s fee alone can consume 8% to 10% of the entire film budget,” Faramawy says. The star is also the gate before anything else happens: “Many production houses won’t even evaluate a script unless an A-list star is already attached to it,” he tells us.
Then it goes to paper and to budget. Writers go from a one-sentence logline to a two-to-four-page treatment, then a scene-by-scene outline, before finalizing the screenplay, Zain Ahmed, an assistant director turned scriptwriter, tells us. You can’t set scenes “in Italy when there’s no budget to travel there,” he adds. “The more contained and feasible your script is, the higher the chances it actually gets produced.”
And permits are now priced by the street. Producers used to buy one permit for a whole neighborhood like Maadi. Now every street needs its own, and a single street cost around EGP 15k a few years ago. “If you need to shoot across five streets, you have to pay that fee five times over,” Ahmed says.
Egyptian sets are always crowded. Why? “Honestly, because we hire a lot of people,” Ahmed says. A shoot can carry five assistant directors plus trainees, putting as many as 15 people in the directing department. “We take a single job that anywhere else in the world is handled by one person, break it down into three or four separate roles, and put them all in the directing department.”
The clock costs money too. A standard shift on set runs 14 hours, and overtime usually pays an extra half day. Crews are owed a 12-hour gap between shifts, so a 2am wrap means a 2pm call. Small things sink whole days. “A movie set is essentially organized chaos that you’re constantly trying to control,” Ahmed tells us. “An entire shooting day can be derailed because a single prop didn’t arrive.”
When money runs short, the script takes the first hit. Producers go back to the page and hunt for scenes the story can live without. “In the industry, we call those scenes ‘the fat,’” Faramawy says. “On-screen time equals money.” Swapping a lead actor or downgrading cameras and lighting comes last: “Quality cuts are always the last thing on the table.”
Getting a film out there
Marketing starts as the camera rolls. “You can’t wait until post-production to think about marketing, because key marketing materials must be shot on set during principal photography,” Faramawy says. So who fronts it? For MAD Solutions, marketing is handled in-house and capped early, Head of Sales and Acquisitions Abdelrahman Amin tells us. “Right at the beginning, we specify in the contract that marketing expenses shouldn’t exceed a set amount of money.” MAD covers that spend and claws it back: “If marketing expenses are, for example, EGP 10, I might pay that upfront and then recoup that money from revenues.” MAD then takes a fixed percentage of whatever the film earns.
Arthouse films get a leaner playbook. “If I’m marketing a commercial film, I’ll do billboards, on-ground activations, social media, etc,” Amin says. For arthouse titles, “we mainly rely on social media, PR, and a film’s festival premiere.”
Then there’s rights and licensing. MAD Distribution usually takes exclusive Arab world rights across theatrical, festival, TV, and streaming, while MAD World takes worldwide or international rights. Amin prefers 10-year terms, since the premiere and theatrical cycle alone runs more than a year and streaming licenses usually last two to five.
The festival route runs in a set order. “If your film premieres at Cannes, then goes to Karlovy Vary, finishes its international run, and then comes to El Gouna or Red Sea before moving to Carthage, that journey builds maximum buzz, media press, and public awareness,” Amin says.
Recouping is harder, though not impossible. “Distributors abroad have become hesitant to take risks, and so are producers. So it’s harder, but I wouldn’t say it doesn’t happen,” Amin says, noting that films like Goodbye Julia and The Voice of Hind Rajab both covered their budgets. And streamers are chasing stars too. Streaming platforms, both regional and international, are buying fewer arthouse and festival titles after three years of rising commercial output. “Right now, audiences are less focused on arthouse and festival films and more focused on major star-driven films,” Amin says.
Where the margin actually lives
Then comes the box office split. The 60% of the local gross that producers never see goes to exhibitors, distributors, taxes, and theatrical overhead, Faramawy says. Take a film that grosses EGP 100 mn at local cinemas: the producer walks away with about EGP 40 mn. Against a EGP 70-80 mn budget, a nine-figure local hit still doesn’t clear its costs.
So producers look to the Gulf. Saudi and Gulf cinemas pay out in USD and SAR, and that hard currency is now where producers make their margin. “That shift has completely redefined our business model over the past decade,” Faramawy says. The fix is a film that “appeals to both the local Egyptian audience and broader regional markets.”
Where the money is for first-timers
Grants are your way in. Regional funds take applications online, but “mainstream commercial production in Egypt is concentrated, making it difficult for outsiders to break in without existing connections,” Ahmed says. CineGouna is one door of many: funds across the region back Arab films at every stage, most taking applications online once a year. Most 2026 calls have closed, but here’s your who’s-who list for the 2027 round:
CineGouna Funding(Egypt): USD 15k each for the best development and post-production projects, out of more than USD 300k a year in prizes and services for Arab feature fiction and documentaries;
Cairo Film Connection(Egypt): Grants, production services, and in-kind awards for Arab feature fiction and documentaries in development or post-production, open to directors with at least one completed film;
Red Sea Fund(Saudi Arabia): USD 15 mn in grants across 280+ projects to date for directors of Arab, African, or Asian nationality, with post-production cycles in January and July, production in March, and development in May;
Doha Film Institute Grants(Qatar): Development, production, and post-production support for first- and second-time filmmakers worldwide in spring and fall cycles;
AFLAMUNA Impact Fund(Lebanon): Seed money to hire an outreach team and launch an impact campaign for a finished Arab film;
MAFF Development Fund(Sweden): Development support for Swedish-Arab co-productions or films on Arab identity, culture, or exile, with a Swedish producer attached.
Egyptians have long been storytellers, and storytellers have long found great success in the advertising industry. In A Trade in Dreams: A Century of Egyptian Print Advertising, AUC Professor of Design and author of A History of Arab Graphic Design Bahia Shehab (LinkedIn) takes on the Herculean feat of tracing and archiving the history of print advertising in Egypt from the tail end of the 18th century all the way to the mid-20th century, expertly showcasing how politics, colonialism, and society can shape the stories a country and its advertisements can tell.
What to expect: Shehab works chronologically, starting with Napoleon Bonaparte, whose 1798 proclamation to the Egyptian people was the first mass message from the West aimed at an Egyptian audience. Until then, messages had been passed on orally; a conqueror’s PR campaign changed that. From there, she follows the rise of print in Om El Donia — the first newspapers and how the medium evolved. The book covers the earliest advertising, when Western ideas met local consumption, the rise of celebrity endorsement under the monarchy, and what she calls the golden era of Egyptian advertising in the ’40s. The shifts in the ads tracked the shifts in Egyptian society itself.
What we liked: The book is the product of years of painstaking research into an industry Shehab calls “invisible in global scholarly circles,” and it shows. It’s rich with specifics: the first recorded ad published in Egypt, the stories behind the papers still in circulation today, and how the political movements that shaped modern Egypt shaped its consumers too. It’s also a history of Egypt itself and a reminder of how closely the country’s media tracks its daily life.
The verdict: Filled with scores of illustrations, archival material, and newspaper clippings alongside its rich academic text, A Trade in Dreams offers a multisensory reading experience that incites further reading until all 250 pages of it are turned. For professionals in the media and advertising industries, this is a must-read; for everyone interested in Egyptian history, the same proves just as true.
WHERE TO GET IT- A Trade in Dreams is available in paperback at AUC Bookstores and Diwan. You can also get the e-book through Amazon.
Rooftop dining usually comes with certain expectations: a good view, some atmosphere, and a meal worth dressing up for.Sal & Sol in New Cairo has the first two covered, but the third is where it falls apart.
The space itself is modern, spacious, and comfortable, with generous gaps between tables and soft jazz that lets conversation lead. We were seated by the window, and the waiter was friendly and patient while we read the menu. The complimentary bread basket was a promising start — the brioche stood out, and the garlic-herb butter was the best thing on the table.
The meal got off on the right foot with the appetizer. The Wild Mushroom Cream Soup arrived hot, well-seasoned, and generously portioned. The creamy base worked, though the finely grated mushrooms gave it an unusual texture that may not appeal to everyone.
The Chicken Pasta Ala Forno was also good, with a hearty, creamy sauce and a proper portion of everything. Unfortunately, it arrived only after a long wait and did little to redeem the evening.
Here’s where things went downhill: The Mushroom Truffle Risotto was heavy and underseasoned, with visible clumps of cream cheese that weren’t blended into the rice. We had to add a considerable amount of salt to add flavor.
The Chicken Souvlaki was the evening’s biggest problem. For its price, the portion was disappointingly small: two skewers with three small pieces of chicken each, served over tzatziki and grilled vegetables. Worse, the chicken was visibly pink inside and appeared undercooked. We flagged it, the waiter took the plate away and promised a replacement, and nearly 40 minutes later, the new plate arrived so overcooked and tough we couldn’t cut it. The dish was eventually swapped out for a pasta, by which point we’d waited over an hour and a half for a main course.
Our verdict: Sal & Sol has a lovely setting, but the kitchen struggled to deliver where it mattered most. Undercooked chicken followed by an inedible replacement is a serious problem, and the lengthy wait made matters worse. With a limited menu and a confusing trek to find the restaurant’s location inside the mall, we wouldn’t rush back.
WHERE TO FIND IT- You can find Sal & Sol at Voco, Arabella Plaza in New Cairo. Reservations are required.
Pragmata was the ghost of Capcom’s release slate. Announced in 2020 with a cryptic trailer — a spacesuit-clad astronaut, a robotic cat, and a young girl crossing a dystopian lunar landscape — it then disappeared behind a run of apologies and delays long enough to turn it into an industry in-joke. It finally landed in April 2026, and it was worth the wait.
The running joke was that Pragmata was an experiment to see how long fans would wait for a game. The delays were really restraint. After the success of the Resident Evil 2 Remake, Capcom pushed the Resident Evil 3 Remake out in 2020, and the backlash over its cut content stuck. The company seems to have carried that lesson into Pragmata and refused to rush it.
The lunar landing: Pragmata resists easy categorization — a blend of environmental puzzle-solving, escort mechanics, and tactical action. You play the astronaut, using the young girl Diana’s hacking abilities to bend gravity and survive the robotic enemies in your way.
The real payoff is for players who stay with it. A hidden ending unlocks only after you finish the main campaign and the post-game content, and it recasts the relationship between the astronaut and Diana — the reward for a six-year wait.
The verdict: Pragmata is Capcom’s boldest original IP swing in years and a reminder that the studio will still take real creative risks.
💯 Rating: 87/100 on Metacritic
⌛ Hours of gameplay: ~15-20 hours (Add 10+ for the true ending)
🔁 Replay value: 7/10 - A highly cinematic, story-driven experience
For two decades, Krista Tippett has kept returning to the same two questions: what does it mean to be human and how do we want to live? Her podcast On Being is one of the rare corners of media that takes those questions seriously, sitting with their complexity instead of resolving them quickly.
What to expect: The show sits at the intersection of spirituality, science, social commentary, and poetry. Each episode is a conversation with a different kind of thinker — poets, physicists, physicians, historians, activists, and spiritual leaders. Originally launched on US public radio and syndicated across hundreds of stations before transitioning into a podcast, On Being now boasts an archive of over 1.1k episodes spanning 20 years, with guests including poet Mary Oliver, Zen teacher and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, and South African anti-apartheid leader Desmond Tutu.
The mystery of consciousness: In a recent episode recorded live in New York with author Michael Pollan, Tippett discusses his latest book, A World Appears. The conversation turns on what consciousness actually is — perception, feeling, thought, or self-awareness — and moves from plant intelligence, which Pollan clearly relishes, to new technologies that evoke awe and anxiety in equal measure.
The AI debate: This specific episode divided long-time listeners. Talking about consciousness, Tippett referenced her ongoing interactions with Anthropic’s AI model Claude. The moment drew sharp criticism from some fans who felt her tone leaned too close to fascination, accusing her of jumping the gun by entertaining machine consciousness as a plausible reality.
What we liked: The show possesses a rare depth we don’t often find on podcasts. Tippett avoids the rushed, confrontational rhythm that dominates most talk shows, allowing silence to sit before pushing ideas as far as they can go. This patient approach makes her one of the best interviewers working in media, in our opinion, allowing guests room to work through complex ideas without interruption.
The verdict: For an hour of serious, searching conversation, the back catalogue alone is worth the subscription. If you enjoy warm, soothing voices that put your mind at ease, Tippett’s gentle delivery makes this podcast an essential listen.
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