It was last night that the 4 endedth Edition of the El Gouna Film Festival (GFF) by a ceremony held at the El Gouna conference and culture center, during which the winning films of the festival prizes, worth around 224,000 USD, were announced.
After a song by the Tunisian Emel Mathluthi With which the ceremony started, a tribute had been paid to the Egyptian actor Khaled El Sawy who received an excellence award for the whole of his work. Very moved, El Sawy expressed his pleasure to be honored by this El Gouna film festival, which he considers as one of the most important cinematographic events in the whole Arab region.
The new Khaled Bichara Prize for independent filmmakers in Egypt was then awarded to the film project Hamlet of slums from Ahmed Fawzi-Saleh. From this edition, this prize, worth 10,000 USD will be awarded each year to support young Egyptian filmmakers.
The prizes rewarding the official selection were finally announced, after a very nice nod to the Egyptian soap opera 100 wech/100 faces Who had hit the way in the Arab world during the month of Ramadan last and whose protagonists had been a bit of the darlings of this edition of the festival. This soap opera tells the adventures of a bunch of very friendly criminals. Yesterday, with their chief ensuring Yassine, moreover, a member of the jury feature films of fiction, they had indeed stolen the trophies intended for the winners. Fortunately, Intishal Al Timimi, director of the GFF, had been able to recover them!
Unsurprisingly, the film The man who sold his skin From the Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania won the prize for the best Arab film. This film, whose very idea had germinated during this festival and whose project had won in 2018 a prize of 10,000 dollars offered by B-Link Productions on the Cinégouna platform, had been the opening film of this 4th edition.
The first of this film had taken place at the Mostra of the cinema in Venice in September 2020 in the Orrizonte section, where He had won two awards: the Edipo Re Prize and the price for the best actor for the young Syrian Yahya Mahayni.
(You can listen to the word of thanks from Kaouther Ben Hania by clicking here)
The Palestinian film 200 metersproduced by Ameen Nayfeh, whose project had in 2017, won a prize of 5,000 dollars at the Cinegouna Platform, which had also been selected at the Mostra of Venice cinema in the Venice Days section and which had won the public prize there, raised the GFF three prizes: the Fipresci price, the public price and the price of the best actor for Ali Suliman.
Complete list of this 4th edition of the GFF:
– Competition fiction feature films:
- L’Etoile d’or fiction feature (trophy, certificate and 50,000 USD) for the Bosnian film Quo vadis, Aida? by Jasmila žbanic;
- L’Etoile d’Argent fiction of fiction (trophy, certificate and 25,000 USD) for the Italian film Bad tales from Damiano d’Innocenzo and Fabio d’Inocenzo;
- The bronze Star Fiction fiction (trophy, certificate and 15,000 USD) for the film In Between Dying Azerbaijani Hilal Baydarov;
- The Star of the best Arab Fiction film (trophy, certificate and 20,000 USD) for the film The man who sold his skin by Kaouther Ben Hania;
- The Star of Best Actor (Trophy, Certificate) for the Palestinian Ali Suliman For his role in the film 200 meters ;
- The Star of the best actress (trophy, certificate) for Jasna Durricic For his role in the film Quo vadis, help?;
- Special mention of the jury for the film Oasis Directed by Serbian Ivan Ikic.
– Competition documentary feature films:
- L’Etoile d’Or Documentary feature (trophy, certificate and 30,000 USD) for the film Cannibalism days by Teboho Edkins (South Africa);
- The Silver Star Function Documentary (Trophy, Certificate and 15,000 USD) for Soft by Sam Soko (Kenya);
- The Bronze Star Function Documentary (Trophy, Certificate and US $ 7,500) for Truffle hunters by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw (Italy, United States, Greece);
- The Star of the best Arabic documentary feature (trophy, certificate and 10,000 USD) for Their Algeria by Lina Soualem (France, Algeria, Switzerland).
– Short films competition:
- The Golden Star Short Film (Trophy, Certificate and 15,000 USD) for Be my mother by Jasmine Trinca (Italy);
- The Silver Star Short film (Trophy, Certificate and US $ 7,500) for Blue border by Ivan Milosavljević (Serbia, Slovenia);
- The short film bronze star (trophy, certificate and 4,000 USD) for Sër bi by Moly Kane (Senegal);
- The Star of the best Arab short film (trophy, certificate and 5,000 USD) for I’m afraid of forgetting your face by Sameh Alaa (Egypt). It should be noted that this film had won the day before the Palme d’Or short film at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival.
The public price For a film illustrating humanitarian themes (trophy, certificate and USD 20,000) for 200 meters by Ameen Nayfeh (Palestine).
Netpac price of the best Asian film for In Between Dying by Hilal Baydarov.
Fipresci price For 200 meters by Ameen Nayfeh.
Neïla Driss
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