The Cairo Film International Film Festival (CIFF) has just announced the selection of the Egyptian fiction feature film Curfew-curfewdirected by Amir Ramses, to participate, as a world premiere, in the international competition of the 42nd edition of the Festival which will be held from November 19 to 28, 2020.
The film takes place at the end of fall 2013 during the curfew in Egypt. Faten comes out of prison after 20 years of imprisonment, to find Leila, her daughter, unable to overcome the past. Only one thought obsesses him: his mother murdered her father. But for her part, Faten refuses to reveal the main reason for the murder, letting her daughter believe in all the rumors propagated by the neighbors, according to which she would have deceived her husband with Yehia. The latter has never tried to defend himself because of the promise he had made to Faten. This situation puts Leila in a difficult situation, in permanent conflict between the rejection of her own mother and her progressive attachment to her.
After Mohamed HefzyPresident of CIFF, the public of the festival has always been very interested in any participation of an Egyptian film in international competition. This represents a challenge for the team responsible for programming which does everything possible each year to choose the right film which will represent Egyptian cinema internationally and which will be able to compete with the most important films of the year in the world. This is what was achieved for this 42nd edition of the CIFF, with the world premiere programming of the feature film Curfew and also With the selection of the first Arab world and Africa, of the documentary film Lift like a girl by May Zayed, after his first international at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Mohamed Hefzy Added that in addition to his happiness of participation in the festival of two of the best films produced in 2020 in Egypt, in terms of documentary and fictitious cinema, he is also proud of the Egyptian film industry, which overcome this difficult period of the coronavirus pandemic and continued the work, offering a distinguished production which deserves to be quoted internationally.
“The Cairo Festival is the best start of the film’s cinematographic journey. With these words, the director Amir Ramses commented on the choice of Curfew To participate in the CIFF international competition, stressing that the team did not hesitate for a moment to postpone its world premiere next November.
Amir Ramses also said that he was personally happy with this new official participation in the CIFF, fifteen years after the presentation of his first feature film End of the World – the end of the world to the Arab competition in 2005, explaining that Curfew had been made for the Egyptian public, and therefore its programming by the prestigious Cairo festival is the right launch before its official release in theaters at the end of this year.
Curfew was written and directed by Amir Ramses, with in the main roles, artists Ilham ChahineAmina Khalil, Ahmed Magdy, Arifa Abdel Rasoul, Mahmoud al-Aquihi, and the participation of the Palestinian actor Kamel El Basha (who had won the Volpi cut of the best male interpretation for his performance in The Lebanese film The insult to the Venice Mostra 2017) and a special appearance of director Khairy Bishara.
Amir Ramsès, born in 1979, graduated from the Institut Higher Cinema in 2000. He began his career as an assistant in several films by the international Egyptian director Youssef Chahine, before making his own films which managed to represent Egyptian cinema in local and international festivals, in which he won numerous prizes, in particular with His documentary film Jews of Egypt – On the Jews of Egyptwhich participated in more than forty international festivals, including the festivals of Montreal, Hamburg, Palm Springs, and with its fiction feature film Cairo Time – At Cairowhich was projected at the opening of the “Arabian Nights” program at the Dubai film festival in 2014.
Amir Ramses participated in the jury of a large number of festivals, and is currently artistic director of the El Gouna film festival in Egypt.
