El Gouna is giving Egyptian cinema plenty of room this year. In its ninth edition, the festival brings together a Career Achievement Award for Mona Zaki, a tribute to Mohamed Khan and a record number of Arab films. The choices offer a way to read a programme that also includes major international names: through the filmmakers and performers who have shaped the region’s cinema, and those making work now.
The festival runs until 23 October under the theme “Cinema for Humanity”, and has selected Marc Fitoussi’s All About Corinne, starring Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Kiberlain, as its opening film. Andrew Mohsen is the festival’s artistic director. This year, its Egyptian honours and regional selection give the programme a specific focus.
Start with Mona Zaki. The Egyptian actress receives the festival’s Career Achievement Award at the opening ceremony and will give a masterclass during the festival. Zaki is a mainstream Egyptian star, and honouring her recognises a major part of the country’s screen culture. At the 25 September press conference, actress Yousra said the festival had reached a level that was “global, not local”. She also described Zaki as “an actress with an extraordinary uniqueness” and spoke about how hard she works and studies acting. The award makes a clear case for recognising Egyptian performers alongside the festival’s expanding international programme.
The tribute to Mohamed Khan deserves equal attention. Ten years after the Egyptian director’s death, El Gouna is holding discussions dedicated to his work. Khan remains a touchstone of Egyptian realist cinema of the 1980s and 1990s. Discussing his work connects the programme to an earlier generation of filmmakers. Seek out the discussions if you know his name but have yet to watch his films, and use them as a way into his work.
Then there are the films themselves. El Gouna has 10 Arab films in its programme, its highest number to date. In the feature competition, Moroccan director Yassine El-Idrissi’s Halima appears alongside Miroslav Terzić’s Three Weeks After and Yukiko Sode’s Lovers of All the Nights. The documentary selection is another place to look: Big Boys Don’t Cry by Mohamed Mostafa, Citizen Osama by Ahmad Hassouna and The Return of Captain Kabonga by Amir El-Shenawy are all in competition. Together, these titles give readers starting points across fiction and documentary, with regional films programmed alongside work by directors from elsewhere. If you are choosing where to begin, start with the Arab titles in competition and work outwards.
The shorts deserve a look too. Among the 13 films in competition are Omar Rammal’s Kentucky Gaza and Mariam Abdelgaber’s Disquiet, which has its world premiere at El Gouna. I Broke a Vase, a co-production between Yemen, the UAE and Sudan, is another title to note. The shorts offer a compact way to encounter filmmakers and collaborations from across the region, especially for anyone looking beyond the feature programme.
The fourth consecutive edition of Window on Palestine also belongs on the list. After two years in which war coverage has dominated much of the international discussion around Arab cinema, its continued place in the festival’s programme is important. Alongside the record Arab-film count, the strand shows how El Gouna is making space for work from the region within a growing international event.
There is more happening beyond the screenings. CineGouna Series is a new festival platform for developing Arab TV series projects. Director Yousry Nasrallah will give a masterclass, while producer Angus Finney will lead a session on AI and the film industry. For international cinema, look for Pawel Pawlikowski’s Fatherland and İlker Çatak’s Yellow Letters in the out-of-competition programme.
El Gouna still has room for international cinema. Its most compelling decisions this year concern Egyptian film history and Arab filmmakers working now. Between Zaki, Khan, the competition films and Window on Palestine, the ninth edition gives audiences plenty to explore before the festival closes on 23 October. Check the festival’s schedule for screening times.
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