The festival includes 75 international and regional feature narratives, short films and documentaries from 44 countries.
El Gouna Film Festival (GFF) launched its CineGouna Platform (CGP) at the El Gouna Conference and Culture Center (GCCC), along with a variety of screenings and events.
CineGouna Platform includes two programmes: CineGouna Bridge and CineGouna SpringBoard. For its fifth edition, CineGouna Platform incorporated 20 cinematic projects, of which 13 are projects in development and six are films in post-production in addition to one guest film. CGP’s awards comprise a total of US $300,000.
Among the events set for October 17 is a screening of the Egyptian film Feathers by Omar El Zohairy, which won both the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week and the FIPRESCI Award.
Competing as a part of GFF’s Feature Narrative Competition, the film’s red carpet will start at 5:30 PM with its screening at 6:30 PM at El Gouna Conference and Culture Center. Additionally under the guise of the Feature Narrative Competition, the film Compartment no. 6, winner of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival’s Grand Prix, will be screened at 9:45 p.m. at Sea Cinema.
As part of CGP, a panel titled Cinema as an Agent for Social Change will be held to discuss the role of cinema in public debates and how film can be used as an agent for change.
The panellists include Egyptian director Ali El Arabi, Lebanese director Zeina Daccache, Hovig Etyemezian, who heads UNHCR’s Innovation Service, Suba Umathevan, CEO of Drosos Foundation, with the moderator being Mariam Farag. The panel will be held at 10:30 AM at TU Berlin’s Audimax hall.
A masterclass by American director Darren Aronofsky, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his film Black Swan, will take place on October 17 at 4:00 PM at Festival Plaza with Teresa Cavina.
On October 16, a retrospective exhibition of Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski opened, commemorating the 25th anniversary of his passing. Curated by Egyptian production designer and art director Onsi Abu Seif, the exhibition presents the life and works of the director best known for the Three Colours trilogy.
Captains of Za’atari, a documentary about two teenage Syrian refugees chasing their dreams to become professional footballers, screened in the Arab world for the first time at the El Gouna Film Festival on October 16 as part of its Feature Documentary Competition.
Directed by Egyptian Ali El Araby, Captains of Zaatari was the only Arab film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Russian film Captain Volkonogov Escaped, which participated at the 2021 Venice International Film Festival also screened in Feature Narrative Competition
Additionally, El Gouna Film Festival’s Short Film Competition commenced with its first programme, which was screened at the Audimax hall at TU Berlin. The programmes comprised of five films, including the Egyptian film CAI-BER by Ahmed Abd El Salam and the Saudi film Nour Shams by Faiza Ambah.
