The Cairo International Film Festival is marking a decade of supporting Arab filmmakers with the 10th edition of its Cairo Film Connection (CFC) funding platform.
Running from November 17- 20, CFC is a part of the festival’s Cairo Industry Days and features 18 projects either in development or as works-in-progress from 11 Arab countries, including eight from Egypt. They were chosen from a pool of over 200 submissions by a selection committee comprising three Egyptian filmmakers: Yomna Khatab, Ahmed Refaat and Heba Habib.
Scroll down for full line-up
Under the leadership of Rodrigo Brum, the newly appointed director of CFC, the programme helps Arab filmmakers to find artistic and financial support and co-production opportunities through organised meetings with producers, distributors, funding bodies, programmers and mentors.
Brum, a producer and cinema professor, was appointed in August, three months before the festival’s 45th edition. “I was initially in doubt because it was a very short period to work on everything. But I am quite confident about the selection; we tried to map the projects in the region,” Brum says.
The selected projects reflect the diverse narratives emerging from the Arab world from established voices and up-and-coming talent.
They include Lebanese filmmaker Karim Kassem’s feature fiction project, Before Now, Later. Kassem previously won the best documentary award at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) 2021 for his film Octopus.
The line-up also includes the feature fiction project Thank You Satan by Moroccan filmmaker Hicham Lasri, the director of The Sea Is Behind which was in Berlinale official selection in 2014, and the feature documentary The North Wind by Lebanese filmmaker Eliane Raheb, the winner of Teddy Award at Berlin Film Festival for Miguel’s War, 2021.
Additionally, one of Screen’s Arab stars of Tomorrow 2021, Kuwaiti architect, designer and filmmaker Maysaa AlMumin, is presenting her debut feature narrative project, All the Colours Blue, a story about a devoted daughter who sacrifices her career to care for her ailing mother. When her mother expresses a dying wish to revisit Egypt’s beaches, they embark on a poignant road trip across the desert.
Focus on social issues
Brum says many of the films being made in the MENA region have a strong focus on social issues such as “characters who are refugees, or living in the margins of the societies that they belong to.”
“There is also a horror film project which is a genre we don’t see very often represented in the region,” Brum adds, referring to Ayin Hara by Iraqi filmmaker Yasir Kareem. It’s set in a desertified Iraq of the future, which brings mythical creatures called Silas who curse everyone in the land.
It’s difficult to select films or projects for a major film festival in the MENA region like CIFF without taking into consideration the ongoing conflicts in the region: “I try to be realistic,” says Brum. “I don’t think cinema change the world, but I believe it can eventually change someone’s perspective, it can humanise their perception of a character, a culture or a country.”
The CFC jury comprises Hugo Rosak, head of industry office at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival; Egyptian filmmaker Hala Galal and Lebanese producer Myriam Sassine. They will award the winning projects on November 20.
The projects compete for around $205,000: $55,000 in cash and the rest in the form of supporting services awards. “I have to thank all our sponsors for their amazing contribution that they give because without this it would be impossible to support the filmmakers,” says Brum.
The list includes an invitation for a project to participate in the next edition of Rough-Cut Lab Africa, two filmmakers’ residencies in Los Angeles from The American Embassy in Cairo and Film Independent, an invitation for a documentary project from Medimed’s programmes and a residency for project(s) in development and/or post-production, from Royal Film Commission Jordan.
CFC projects 2024
In Development: Feature Narrative
All the Colors Blue (Kuw-Saudi-Egy)
Dir Maysaa Almumin
Ayin Hara (Iraq)
Dir Yasir Kareem
Before Now, Later (Leb)
Dir Karim Kassem
Dancing on Fire (Saudi-Neth)
Dir Hana Alomair
Exodus (Egy)
Dir Rasha Shahin
Kohl & Cardamom (Egy)
Dir Fady Gamal Atallah
Of Debt and Money (Tun)
Dir Houssem Sansa
In Development Feature Documentary
Amal (Jord)
Dir Khaled Al Swidan
Dry Sky (Sudan-Egy)
Dir Ibrahim Omar
My Dream to Fly (Egy-Qatar)
Dir Asmaa Gamal Algafrie
Ninety Sixty Thirty (Egy)
Dir Hany Yassa
The North Wind (Leb)
Dir Eliane Raheb
Post-Production Feature Narrative
My Father’s Scent (Egy-Swe-Nor-Saudi)
Dir Mohamed Siam
Thank You Satan (Mor-Fr)
Dir Hicham Lasri
Post-Production Feature Documentary
40 Years of Silence (Iraq-UK-Swe)
Dir Maythem Ridha
Barcha (Tun)
Dir Nada Mezni Hafaiedh
Big Boys Don’t Cry (Egy-Ger-Saudi)
Dir Muhammad Mustapha
You Don’t Die Two Times (Alg)
Dir Ager Oueslati
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