More than 320 Arab film projects applied to CineGouna Funding this year, including more than 100 from Egypt, as the industry arm of Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival drew submissions from across the region. At the festival’s ninth edition, running through Oct. 23 on the Red Sea, CineGouna is adding new initiatives as it looks to fill gaps in the regional film landscape. The volume of Egyptian submissions alone prompted El Gouna to create Egyptian Voices, a new strand giving four additional local projects training in pitching, packaging and co-production.
Shawky, a film critic and festival programmer, points to Egypt, where the film commission focuses on attracting foreign productions rather than financing local films. Regional funds have helped fill some of that void, but Shawky says their resources can fluctuate, leaving filmmakers uncertain about available support. At El Gouna this week, CineGouna Funding awarded more than $350,000 in cash and services, with 40 awards going to 16 of the 19 participating projects.
Syrian filmmaker Rama Abdy’s documentary “House No. 7,” about three women building a refuge in Damascus, won the $15,000 CineGouna Platform Award for a project in post-production. Algerian filmmaker Zoulikha Tahar’s “Paradise Beach,” previously selected for Berlinale Talents, took the $15,000 award for a project in development. Sudanese filmmaker Marwa Zein’s “Lily’s Makkah,” her first fiction feature after the documentary “Khartoum Offside,” received a €10,000 grant, post-production support and an invitation to Durban FilmMart.
The participating projects also held more than 140 one-on-one meetings with companies, institutions and international festivals. CineGouna’s work extends beyond financing. CineGouna Emerge, its program for emerging filmmakers and film professionals from Egypt, the Arab world and Africa, focuses on access.
Egyptian filmmaker, producer and programmer Hayat Aljowaily, who heads Emerge, recalls that the program initially focused on covering the costs of bringing participants to El Gouna. But getting newcomers through the door did not necessarily give them the confidence or connections to navigate a film festival. Emerge has since added mentorship, workshops, industry meetings and a dedicated “campus” in the heart of the festival.
More than 300 participants have passed through the program, with this year’s cohort spanning 16 nationalities and including Egyptians from 20 of the country’s 27 governorates. For Aljowaily, that geographic reach is central to Emerge’s purpose. Selected from around 1,000 applicants, she pitched a project that was picked up by an Egyptian short-film producer and received one of two university scholarships, allowing her to move to Cairo to study cinema.
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