The awards of the seventh edition of El Gouna Film Festival witnessed many surprises with a remarkable superiority for Palestinian cinema and its winning of a number of prominent awards, as well as Lebanese cinema.
In the feature film competition, the El Gouna Golden Star Award went to the feature film “Ghost Trace” by Jonathan Meyer, valued at $50,000, a joint French-German-Belgian production. While the El Gouna Silver Star Award went to the feature film “The Kingdom” directed by Julien Colonna from France, valued at $25,000.
The film “Girls Stay Girls” won the El Gouna Bronze Star Award, valued at $15,000. As for the El Gouna Star Award for Best Arab Feature Film, it was shared between the Palestinian film “Thank You for banking with Us” and the Tunisian film “Eyes of the Eye”, valued at $20,000.
The Tunisian artist Adam Bessa won the Best Actor Award for his role in the film “Ghost Trace”. The El Gouna Star Award for Best Actress went to Spanish Laura Wismar, star of the film “Hail Maria”.
Lebanese Excellence
Lebanese cinema topped the awards in the long documentary competition, and the El Gouna Golden Star Award went to the long documentary film “We Are Inside” from Lebanon, directed by Farah Kassem. While the long documentary film “The Soundtrack of the Coup” won the silver award, and the film “A New Kind of Wilderness” won the bronze award.
Despite the unsuccessful participation of Egyptian cinema in the El Gouna Festival this year, with the exception of a few films, the El Gouna Star Award for Best Arab Documentary Film went to “I Lifted My Eyes to the Sky”, shared with the Syrian film “My Memory is Full of Ghosts”.
Short Films
In the short film competition awards, Palestinian cinema topped the awards, and the short film “After” won the El Gouna Golden Star Award, followed by the Palestinian short film “An Orange from Jaffa”, which shared the same award with the Portuguese film “How We Got Our Mother Back”.
The El Gouna Bronze Star Award went to the film “Ebb and Flow” by young Lebanese director Nay Tabbara. The Egyptian film “Amanat El Bahr” won the El Gouna Star Award for Best Arab Short Film. The Egyptian short film “Fajr Kol Youm” received a special mention from the jury. As for the Cinema for Humanity Award, which is given by the festival’s audience to a film that deals with humanitarian issues, the Lebanese film “disorder” won the award, worth $20,000. The El Gouna Film Festival presented the El Gouna Green Star Award for films concerned with the environment, and the film “The Struggle for Laikipia” won the award, worth $10,000. There was a special mention for the film “A New Kind of Wilderness”.
Published Nov 2, 2024.
