After going dark last year due to the war in Gaza, the Cairo Film Festival now returns with a super-sized program and a more humanist remit. Running Nov. 13 – 22, this bulked out edition aims for wider international visibility and greater attendance, all while keeping the projectors running longer than ever before.
“We have to compensate,” says incoming artistic director Essam Zakarea. “We have to make a bigger edition with an unprecedented number of films.”
For this 45th edition, the Cairo Film Festival will screen 194 titles spread across 15 sections, including a number of competitive sections devoted to Palestinian stories and cinema.
This too was born of the similar instinct that the saw the lights dim in 2023.
“If last year was canceled in solidarity with Gaza, [we hold] this edition in that same solidarity,” Zakarea says. “Film festivals are just not for entertainment. They also can play a crucial role in politics, in making people more human, promoting more faith in justice and in good.”
“We want to give these people a voice,” he continues. “We want to show our audiences sides of the conflict not always seen on TV and in the media, because most of these films are about ordinary people. They’re not about wars, but about people trapped and caught in this conflict – innocent people suffering from a very, very shitty situation.”
“4 O’Clock Flowers”
A film critic turned festival bigwig, the incoming artistic director curated the 17 films in this year’s international competition with an ear for unexpected voices telling tales that resonate.
“We weren’t as interested in [filling the international competition with] famous names or famous companies,” says Zakarea. “Let us instead concentrate on unknown filmmakers and unknown countries, selecting good stories with strong, emotional content. [We wanted to highlight] artistic quality with a powerful humanistic element.”
Originally named to lead last year’s jury, filmmaker Danis Tanović will oversee an international competition that features festival standouts like Adam Elliot’s “Memoir of a Snail” and Constance Tsang’s “Blue Sun Palace,” alongside world premiering titles like Shankha Das Gupta’s “Dear Maloti” from Bangladesh and Khedija Lemkecher’s “4 O’Clock Flowers” from Tunisia.
Cairo’s curatorial remit builds on a wider goal to boost participation, with the event now aiming for 60,000 attendees – a record that would add nearly 20,000 festivalgoers to the 2022 score.
“My first interest is our audience,” says Zakarea. “I hope that more Egyptians come to the festival every year, and that Cairo will become a meeting point for filmmakers from around the world to meet and talk and work together.”
With local megastar Ahmed Ezz and heralded auteur Yousry Nasrallah set for festival tributes, this year’s international guests of honors include Gaspar Noé, Jim Sheridan, Eric Roberts and Chen Sicheng.
The latter filmmaker will be on-hand to present his most recent thriller “Decoded” as part of Chinese sci-fi and genre showcase coordinated in partnership with the Beijing Film Festival – a showcase redolent of Cairo’s audience-first focus.
“People need to recognize themselves onscreen,” says Zakarea. “So all the films in the Chinese showcase have very universal themes.”
Indeed, that theme is shared across so much of this year’s ample selection.
“As part of our general strategy to promote co-production and to encourage local distributors, we looked for more ‘digestible films,” says Zakarea. “Releasing European, Asian or African films can be very difficult in Egypt, so we wanted to play a role helping to convince local distributors.”
