“Spring Came on Laughing,” the only Egyptian film in competition at the Cairo Film Festival, is the debut feature of Noha Adel. It is rich in music and messy, full of noisy life, taking the form of a series of conversations between women where a drama rapidly escalates into a jumble of tragedy and dark […]

Three documentary projects took top honors at this year’s Cairo Film Connection, with Ager Oueslati’s “You Don’t Die Two Times” winning the post-production prize as development laurels went to Khaled Al Swidan’s “Amal” and Eliane Raheb’s “The North Wind.” Marking his first year at the head of the Cairo Film Festival’s development and postproduction showcase, […]

Two weeks before the cameras were set to roll, everything fell apart. At that point, “Moondove” director Karim Kassem had spent two years developing his fourth feature and then painstakingly getting the project off the ground. The nonfiction film was supposed to follow a young woman who returns to a small village in Mount Lebanon […]

Egyptian locations will soon take the spotlight in three wildly different titles all set for release next year. While blockbusters “Wicked Part Two” and “Fountain of Youth,” from director Guy Ritchie, both make use of the country’s historical riches and otherworldly expanses, filmmaker Neil Burger will channel the breakneck pace of modern Cairo with his […]

Irish auteur Jim Sheridan will direct the equestrian epic “King of the Wind,” an historical drama about an 18th century Arabian colt that would go on to sire the modern thoroughbred bloodline.    Produced by Alan Moloney (“Small Things Like These”) and Gary Levinsohn (“Saving Private Ryan”) and adapted by Sheridan from Marguerite Henry’s eponymous […]

Following a two-hour masterclass at the Cairo Film Festival, Gaspar Noé spoke with Variety about future genres he’d like to tackle: “The main film genres that really would interest me for a future project are documentary, war film, and horror. Probably I should even try to mix those three genres. I also would like to […]

For the first time in more than a decade, the Cairo Film Festival will open for business. Now kicking off its 45th edition, the Egyptian event has remained a key cultural and artistic showcase for the region and for the wider Middle East and North Africa world – but Cairo has gone without a market […]

After going dark last year due to the war in Gaza, the Cairo Film Festival now returns with a super-sized program and a more humanist remit. Running Nov. 13 – 22, this bulked out edition aims for wider international visibility and greater attendance, all while keeping the projectors running longer than ever before. “We have […]

A 4K restoration of the 1981 film “Lion of the Desert” is to premiere at the Cairo Film Festival this week. Telling the story of Benito Mussolini’s attempt to defeat the Libyan rebellion against fascist Italian rule, the film stars Oliver Reed and Anthony Quinn and was produced and directed by Syrian-American filmmaker Moustapha Akkad. […]

Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi opens the Cairo Film Festival with the world premiere of his new film “Passing Dreams” — that most unlikely of genres: the Palestinian road movie. The film tells the story of Sami (Adel Abu Ayyash), a 12-year-old living in a refugee camp in the West Bank. His father is in jail […]

Italian indie thriller “The Contract,” starring Kevin Spacey as a character named “The Devil,” is set to world premiere at the Cairo Film Festival this week, without Spacey on the red carpet in the Egyptian capital’s Opera House. In the film, Spacey plays a role that has been described in promotional materials as somewhat akin […]