36th Cairo International Film Festival

36th Cairo International Film Festival
The 36th Cairo International Film Festival was held from November 9–18, 2014, including 17 films from ten Arab countries. Six films featured were nominated for the 87th Academy Awards the following year. The jury included four male and four female filmmakers representing the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Europe as well as the disciplines of direction, screenwriting, production, cinematography, and criticism, headed by Egyptian actress Yousra.
Background
Festival management chose Yousra as the first Egyptian jury chair in the history of the Festival. animated and a documentary films also made their first appearances with one of each. Another unprecedented move was hiring an Egyptian designer, Karim Adam, to design the official poster, featuring local actress Nadia Lutfi.
Lutfi received a special Lifetime Achievement Award during the opening ceremony, and the Festival prepared a documentary on her career that was shown on the second day. The first submissions in Festival history opened from the United Arab Emirates (Ali F. Mostafa’s From A to B) and Iran (Abed Abest’s The Corner).
Egyptian films featured
Six Egyptian films were featured at the Festival. The International Features category included Karim Hanafi’s Bab Al-Wadaa (“The Farewell Gate”), starring Salwa Khattab and Ahmed Magdy. The Short Film category featured Ahmed Abdalla’s Décor, starring Kal Naga and Horeya Farghaly, along with Mouhamed Rady’s Wall of Heroism. The Classics category showed a restored version of Henry Barakat’s 1965 film The Sin in honor of what would have been his 100th birthday. Finally, the late director and singer-actor Hussein al-Imam’s black-and-white film Like a Matchstick was screened.
Juries
International Competition
Yousra, Egyptian actress (Chair)
Wang Xiaoshuai, Chinese director, whose Red Amnesia was screened here and at the 71st Venice International Film Festival the same year
Haile Gerima, Ethiopian director
Corinne van Egeraat, Dutch actress-writer-producer
Ibrahim Al-Ariss, Lebanese critic
Alexis Grivas, Greek cinematographer
Dominique Cabrera, French director
Mariam Naoum, Egyptian screenwriter
Nancy Abdel-Fattah, Egyptian cinematographer
International Critics’ Week
Laila Elwi, Egyptian actress (Chair)
Mohamed Reda, Lebanese critic
Najib Ayyad, Tunisian producer
Horizons of Arab Cinema
Khamis Al-Khayati, Tunisian critic (Chair)
Deborah Young, American critic
Barbara Löwe, German critic
Films
International
International Critics’ Week
Awards
International Competition
Golden Pyramid Award: Melbourne, Nima Javidi
Silver Pyramid for Best Director: Forever, Margarita Manda
Silver Pyramid for Best Screenplay, Boy and the World, Alê Abreu
Silver Pyramid for Best Artistic Contribution: Bab Al-Wadaa, cinematographer Zaki Aref
Best Actor: Eyes of a Thief, Kal Naga
Best Actress: Love at First Fight, Adele Hamlin
International Critics’ Week
The following were unanimously announced:
Shadi Abdeslam Prize: No One's Child, Vuk Ršumović
Fathi Farag Award for Best Artistic Contribution: Brides, Tinatin Kajrishvili
Prospects of Arab Movies
Saad Eddine Wahba Prize (Best Artistic Contribution): Sotto Voce, Kamal Kamal (Morocco)
Youssef Chahine Award (Best Artistic Creativity): Bab Al-Wadaa, Zaki Aref
Salah Abu Seif Award (Best Arabic Film): Scheherazade's Diary, Zeina Daccache (Lebanon)
Special Certificate of Appreciation: Theeb
Naguib Mahfouz Awards (Golden Pyramid of Honor):
Volker Schlöndorff, German director
Noureddine Saïl, Egyptian cinematographer
Nadia Lutfi, Egyptian actress
External links
IMDb page
References
Cairo International Film Festival
2014 film festivals