Today sees the sixth round of the National Festival for Egyptian Cinema drawing to a close.
Notwithstanding the prizes, whose announcement in the course of the closing ceremony will no doubt solicit a range of queries as to how and why they are awarded, the festival itself has provoked many thoughts, leaving the reviewer, in many instances, cinematically high and dry. Prizes, while not arbitrary or haphazard, often involve politicking and calculation that are far from objective. In this way they do not necessarily uphold the artistic values to which filmmaking in Egypt presumably aspires. This is especially true of this year's round, since one could hardly have been less enthusiastic about the make-up of the jury. But it is the impressions that the festival has instilled in one's mind that are worthy of discussion and debate.