Egyptian magical realism drama, Libyan doc win top prizes at CineGouna industry platform

Egyptian filmmaker Jad Chahine’s magical realism drama The Masters Of Magic And Beauty and Libyan-US filmmaker Jihan’s feature documentary My Father And Qaddafi have scooped the top prizes at the CineGouna industry platform of the El Gouna Film Festival.

Running October 25-31, the platform’s CineGouna Funding component showcased 21 projects in development and post-production.

Chahine’s debut feature The Masters Of Magic And Beauty won the $15,000 CineGouna award for best project in development. The feature follows the magical circumstances surrounding the birth of a little girl. A couple seeks counsel from the Oracle, only to discover that a past mistake has cursed the family’s bloodline.

My Father And Qaddafi follows Jihan’s journey to unravel the disappearance of her father, the former foreign minister of Libya, in Qaddafi’s regime. It won the $15,000 post-production prize.

The jury comprised Sudanese director and producer Amjad Abu Alala, known for You Will Die at 20 and Goodbye Julia; Tunisian film critic Lamia Guiga, artistic director of Carthage Film Festival; and Nadia Dresti, founder of Locarno Pro.

There were also a raft of sponsored prizes worth $339,500 in total.

Among them, Egyptian filmmaker Ayman El Amir’s feature project A Pair of Shoes in The Dark Corner of The Moon won a $10,000 grant from ESLSCA University and $10,000 grant from Arab Radio & Television (ART). It tells the story of a Coptic man, estranged in his remote village in Egypt, who dreams of becoming a renowned actor, but his ambitions lead him to an unexpected fate. The film will be shot in Barsha village in upper Egypt, the main location for El Amir’s Cannes Golden Eye award-winning documentary The Brink of Dreams

Other large winners of sponsored prizes included Saudi Arabia director Lama Jamjoom’s documentary Remind Me To Forget, following the two generations of women in a shelter for divorced, widowed, and elderly women in Saudi Arabia. Among its prizes were $50,000 as a minimum guarantee for sales and distribution from MAD Solutions and a $20,000 grant from MBC Studios and MBC Academy.

Meanwhile, the winner of the Berlinale Golden Bear for best tiny film in 2023, Lebanese filmmaker Michelle Keserwany’s debut feature in development collected three awards, including $50,000 as an MG for sales and distribution from MAD Solutions.

Launched in 2017, at the same time as El Gouna Film Festival, CineGouna has now supported various award-winning films, including Egyptian filmmakers Ayman El Amir and Nada Riyadh’s The Brink Of Dreams, winner of this year’s Cannes Golden Eye for best documentary, Lebanese director Ely Dagher’s 2021 Cannes Critics’ Week selection The Sea Ahead and Goodbye Julia by Sudanese filmmaker Mohamed Kordofani.