Today, in his weekly Wednesday meeting, H.H. Pope Tawadros II honored the “Panorama El Barsha Troupe”, the stars of the film “The Brink of Dreams,” which won the Golden Eye Award for Best Documentary Film at the Cannes International Film Festival, and is the first Egyptian film ever to win one of the Cannes Festival Awards. Cannes. Pope Tawadros gave them an opportunity to introduce themselves and their journey through the ‘Panorama El Barsha Troupe’ until their achievement in the Cannes Festival. The meeting was held at the Holy Family House in Wadi El-Natroun, in the presence of the priests of our churches in the Gulf countries, who are currently holding their seventh annual conference in Egypt.

His Holiness praised the ‘El Barsha Girls’ and everyone who encouraged them to continue on their path, achieve their ambitions, and express themselves. He pointed out that art, in reality, is a gift from God. Pope Tawadros explained the meaning of art through the word ‘EARTH’, with the middle three letters being ‘ART’. The word’s first letter stands for ’empty’, and the last letter stands for ‘holy.’ This means that art transforms something meaningless into something that has value. A piece of stone that is thrown is transformed by the artist’s hand into a wonderful masterpiece of art, and the words are organized by the poet into an influential poem, etc… His Holiness highlighted that worship is also a form of art, as the rites are full of artistic creations.

Pope Tawadros also honored the young man; Mark Mourad (18 years old), from the churches of the Old Cairo sector. He was afflicted at the age of 12 with a rare optic nerve disease, which led to the loss of his sight more than four years later. However, he defied his circumstances, studied programming science, and invented a program using artificial intelligence that helps the blind to read PowerPoint slides, and images with all the features they contain. It also extracts the words written on the images and converts them into written words so that the blind can read them easily. This program has been able to help the blind in 25 countries so far. Mark formed a team to design this program and participated in the Vodafone competition in which 200 teams participated, winning first place.

His Holiness praised Mark and his team for their optimistic outlook that resulted in inventions that benefit all people, pointing out that the beauty of humanity lies in the work of every person being beneficial to all people.

Pope Tawadros also honored a team of young people from with Saint Mina’s Church in Foum al-Khaleeg (Old Cairo), who designed a program as part of the graduation projects for the church’s servant preparation classes. The program is called “The Story of an Icon,” through which, by scanning the Q.R. Code, one can learn about the biography of the saint in the icon. The “Story of an Icon” program was released in three languages: Arabic, English and French.

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