Photo: Instagram.com/cairofilms
Cairo International Film Festival announced 17 World Premieres, five International Premieres in short films, and two International Premieres for Features, to be showcased five days ahead of the festival’s press conference. Popular as one of the oldest running film festival in the Middle East, it is the only African and Middle Eastern festival to be accredited category “A” status by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF) in Paris.
Set to overlook eight major film awards and twenty succeeding sub-awards, the eighth edition of the film festival is juried by industry leaders like Hania Mroueh, Metropolis Cinema Director in Lebanon, Egyptian filmmaker Sherif El-Bandary, and Alice Kharoubi, Programming Director of the Cannes Film Festival Market in France.
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The titles announced to be showcased this year include:
International Competition
Seven Dogs (Siete Perros) by Rodrigo Guerrero; An Argentinian production that narrates the story of Enresto, who lives with his seven dogs and tries to overcome conflicts in his life as his neighbors try to get him to get rid of his dogs, who they find to be an inconvenience.
Daughters (Töchter) by Nana Neul; A German film that talks about Martha and Betty who have known each other for twenty years, and are spared with no farewells and fathers who disappear too soon.
International Panorama
Pack of Sheep (Ageli Provaton) by Dimitris Kanellopoulos; A Greek, Albanian, and Serbian production that talks about Thanasis and Stelios, who start a cycle of never ending debt.
Horizons of Arab Cinema Competition
From Cairo by Hala Galal; A documentary about two single women in Cairo and their journey through life, which forces each to make difficult choices.
Tomorrow (Ghodwa) by Dhafer L’Abidine; A production that tells the tale of Habib and his 15-year-old son as they navigate through Habib’s worsening death, and his past experience with Tunisia’s dictatorship.
A Second Life by Aniss Lassoued; A Tunisian production about Gadeha, who falls into a car accident and is helped by Malika and Moez, who help to pay for his hospital fees. Gadeha then meets the couple’s son and a deep-rooted friendship forms, only to be shaken up when Gadeha discovers the family’s source of wealth.
Daughters Of Abdul-Rahman by Zaid Abu Hamdan; A project that talks about four sisters who escape from a dictated life and journey to find their missing father.
Becoming by Sara Mesfer, Fatima Al Banawi, Jawaher Alamri, Hind Al Fahhad, Noor Alameer; A Saudi anthology that will open the festival, and has brought five directors together to share a series of women-centric narratives.
Diary of Gabrielle Street by Rashid Masharawi; A Palestinian documentary about the director who gets besieged in Paris during lockdown.
Collapsed Walls by Hakim Bilabbas; A fiction narrative about an old woman who sits in a destroyed movie theatre, and plays thoughts, feelings, and images from her memory.
Special screening
Nile Crocodile by Nabil Shazli; A documentary about the world-class open water swimmer Abdel Latif Abu Heif.
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