Al-Shaima Ahmed Farouk
Published on: Thursday, December 28, 2023 – 11:58 AM | Last updated: Thursday, December 28, 2023 – 11:58 AM
Arab cinema enjoyed a prominent appearance on the red carpet of international festivals in 2023, and the nationalities and topics of the works varied. But they were consistent in their ability to attract the festival’s audience and critics, and some of them won important awards, and we will monitor some of those works in the following lines.
Olfa girls
According to media coverage of the film’s screening at the Cannes International Film Festival, the festival’s audience and critics received the Tunisian film “Daughters of Olfa” by Tunisian director Kawthar Ben Haniyeh, which participated in the official competition, with warm applause and welcome. The film combines documentary and drama (decodrama).
The film won two awards: the “Positive Cinema” award, which is given to the most positive feature film on the list of films nominated in the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival. This award rewards the film that most addresses cinema as a means of changing our view of the world and serving future generations towards a more positive world. The second is a “special mention” from the Critic François Chalet Award Committee, which has been presented by the François Chalet Society for 27 years, on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival, by a group of critics and journalists specialized in the field of cinema.
The film, in which the artist Hend Sabry participates, deals with the true story of a Tunisian woman named Olfa El Hamrouni, whose name became known throughout the world in 2016, after she publicly raised the issue of the extremism of her two teenage daughters, Rahma and Ghofran, as the two sisters left Tunisia to join and fight in the ranks of ISIS in Libya. .
The film won many other awards at important film festivals, and its most recent resounding achievement was its entry into the short lists for the 96th Academy Awards, namely the Documentary Films List and the Best International Film List.
White lie movie
We are still in North Africa, with the film “White Lies” by Moroccan director Asmaa El-Moudir, a documentary film that combines personal and national history, a joint production between Morocco, Egypt, Qatar, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The film had its world premiere at the 76th Cannes International Film Festival, where Al-Moudir won the Best Director Award in the Un Certain Regard category. On the history of the Kingdom of Morocco during a dangerous period of the Kingdom’s work, the “Years of Lead”.
The film will compete on the short list for the upcoming Academy Awards, in the Best International Film category. The Best International Film list includes 15 films out of 88 films nominated by their countries to compete for the award, which is given annually to a film produced outside the United States, of no less than 40 minutes in length, and no more than one language. English in his dialogue about 50%.
Goodbye Julia
The film Goodbye Julia, directed by Mohamed Kordofani, won a huge number of awards around the world, and this journey began at the Cannes Film Festival, which hosted its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section, where it won the Freedom Award.
The film’s events take place in the city of Khartoum just before the secession of the south, where Mona, a northern woman who lives with her husband, Akram, causes the death of a southern man, and later acts impulsively with a sense of guilt. She tries to improve the financial situation of the victim’s wife, so she hires the wife, Julia, who is searching for her husband and does not… She learns that he was murdered as a servant in her house and her assistant.
Issa
The film “Issa” or “I Promise You Paradise,” directed by Egyptian director Mourad Mostafa, won the “Golden Rail Award,” which is given to the best short film in the Critics’ Week Competition at the 76th Cannes International Film Festival.
The film won many awards, including the Golden Knight Award for Best Short Film at the 61st Malta International Film Festival. It also won two awards at the Yerevan International Film Festival for Short Films in Armenia, namely the Grand Prize for Best Short Narrative Film, the Best Screenplay Award, and the Best Film Award. Short at the 71st Melbourne Film Festival, which is held in Australia.
The events of the film – which stars Kenny Marcelino and Kenzi Muhammad – revolve around an African immigrant who lives in Egypt and is 17 years old. He tries to race against time to save his loved ones, no matter the cost, due to a violent accident.
