About

Meeting Venus is an online magazine dedicated to women in film, television, and the arts, founded in 2019 by Sherif M. Awad, a film critic, curator, and festival programmer since 1990. With more than 600 articles, it features interviews with actresses and artists from around the world and in-depth profiles of the stars of classic and contemporary cinema.

What Is Meeting Venus?

Meeting Venus began in 2019 as a home for interviews with women in the arts: actresses, directors, singers, dancers, models, and performers from Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The interviews followed the style of Sherif's years in magazine and newspaper journalism: direct, curious, and focused on each artist's own story.

Over time, the site grew into a magazine of film history and cultural analysis. Today, Meeting Venus publishes in-depth profiles of the actresses of classic European cinema, especially the Italian giallo and comedy era of the 1960s and 1970s, alongside articles on Hollywood stars, changing beauty standards, the pressures actresses face in the industry, and the women redefining film and television today.

What You'll Find Here

Interviews with hundreds of actresses, artists, and creators from around the world, many published in their own words.

Actress profiles tracing the careers of stars such as Laura Gemser, Sylvia Kristel, Erika Blanc, Barbara Bouchet, Edwige Fenech, Carroll Baker, and Annie Belle, including our series on the actresses who vanished from Italian cinema.

Cultural analysis of how cinema has portrayed women: nudity and consent, ageism, the price of a sensual screen image, and the women who fought for control of their own careers.

Live video interviews on the Meeting Venus YouTube channel, where Sherif talks with filmmakers, actresses, and artists in real time.

About the Founder: Sherif M. Awad

Sherif M. Awad is a film critic, curator, and festival programmer who has worked professionally since 1990. He has curated and programmed films for festivals in Cairo and Alexandria and in Italy, Denmark, Sweden, and Ireland, and was appointed by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture as general coordinator of the 25th Alexandria Biennale.

He has served as an editor for various film publications, including as Film and Art Editor of Egypt Today magazine, and produced and wrote film and art television programs broadcast across the Middle East, including the weekly program Cinemascope on Dream TV. As a critic and reporter, he has covered the festivals of Berlin, Cannes, Rome, Taormina, Istanbul, Dubai, Oran, and Tribeca.

After decades based in Egypt, he has lived in Ecuador since 2021. He speaks Arabic, English, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, which allows Meeting Venus to feature artists from many cultures and to research film history in its original languages.

Sherif also writes about directors, horror, the Italian giallo,