El Gouna Film Festival is back again with its fifth edition, which means double the fun! This year, GFF will be screening 37 films in the Feature Narrative Competition, 15 films in the Feature Documentary Competition, and 23 films in the Short Film Competition, as well as 5 films in GFF’s special retrospectives program, and 6 films out of competition, which means 86 titles in total.
The festival will be attended by GFF founder Engineer Naguib Sawiris and El Gouna founder Engineer Samih Sawiris. Also attending are number of GFF’s International Advisory Board members, in addition to members of its international jury, and some of the directors, actors and producers of the participating films.
This year’s feature film competition jury was chaired by the American producer Rob Allen, includes world-renowned Arab actress Menna Shalby, Sarah Hoch is the founder and executive director of the Guanajuato film festival of mexico, Lebanese producer Geoerge Hachim, Indian directok Kabir Khan.
The jury of the full-length documentary film competition was headed by the Mexican producer Marta Sosa, which includes the Palestinian producer Mai Odeh, the American director Kim I Snyder, the Jordanian director Mahmoud Al-Massad and the South Korean producer Jay Jeon.
The Egyptian director Kamela Abu Zekry headed the jury of the short film competition, which includes the Moroccan actress Nadia Konda, the Italian critic Nina Roth, the French film programmer Alice Kharroubi and the Egyptian director Tamer Ashry.
In the 2021 session, the festival, which will last until October 22, 2021, will launch a new competition to spread and maintain awareness of environmental issues. This year five films will be recorded and the winning film will receive the Green El Gouna Star Prize money of $ 10,000.
Given last year’s experience held globally despite the global corona pandemic outbreak, this year the festival invited all attendees to provide a certificate of vaccination against the virus or to undergo a medical check-up every 72 hours, with a Emphasis on vaccinating all organizers with the vaccine.
In addition to the presentations, seminars and specialist workshops, the festival is working on the incubation and promotion of the film industry through the “Cinema El Gouna Platform”, which, in cooperation with various production companies, offers material and technical grants for film projects in development and post-production stages with a value of
About $ 350 thousand.
Getting down to business, this year’s Creative Achievement Award goes to the iconic Egyptian actor Ahmed El saka and the Palestinian producer Mohamed Bakry.
Some of Arab’s favorite stars who will be attending the festival include Mona Zaki, Saba Mubarak, renowned actress Yousra, acclaimed filmmaker Yousry Nasrallah and Tunisian actress Hend Sabri.
All serious filmmaking business aside, we know what to expect from last year! All eyes will be on celebrities’ dresses, style, hair and makeup, and more! Stay tuned to our daily coverage.
Published October 10, 2021.
