The 8th El Gouna Film Festival, running from October 16th to 24th in the Egyptian tourist resort of the same name, has announced the films in competition this year.
This year’s organisers want to showcase young Egyptian film-makers by showing their first or second feature films. One of these is Mohamed Rashad’s The Settlement. This first film is inspired by true events: two brothers, one 23 and the other 12, investigate the suspicious death of their father in a factory accident. The film is presented in the Feature Film Competition.
The El Gouna Film Festival also gives documentaries a special place with its Feature Documentary Competition. Among the films presented 50 Meters shows us the relationship between the film’s director, Yomna Khattab, and her father. Also in competition, Namir Abdel Messeeh’s Life After Siham explores the director’s inner life, tracing his family’s story after the loss of his mother when he was a child.
Several of the films in the programme benefitted from the festival’s CineGouna Funding! platform. For the event’s artistic director, Marianne Khoury, this on-going support during a film’s life “underlines the El Gouna Film Festival’s commitment to providing a global platform for Arab and Egyptian films and celebrates the rich cultural narratives being produced by the region’s most promising talents.”
Sources: Broadcast Pro, El Gouna Film Festival
