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The submission process for the 45th Cairo International Film Festival will open officially tomorrow, Saturday April 15th and is encouraging requests from all over the world until August 1 2023. To apply, simply go to the CIFF website.
For the occasion, Hussein Fahmy, President of the festival, stated, "We are happy with all the great feedbacks we have received about the last edition from both the press and festival's audience, and we are proud of all achievements of forty-fourth edition at the level of programming and inviting important industry guests. We also consider receiving great industry stars -- such as Bella Tarr, Naomi Kawase, and Matthew Kassowitz, and the special program for the late French director Jean-Luc Godard -- as an indication of the global position of CIFF worldwide, and the place it occupies with its ancient history in Cinema industry." Fahmy concluded, "We promise festival audience an edition no less than the previous one in terms of the quality and level of films and the rather important participating guests."
The last edition witnessed screening of 108 films from 53 countries, including 30 films in either their global and international premieres, and 57 films in their MENA -- Middle East North African -- premieres.. Among these films were Alcarràs, the winner of the (Golden Bear Award) at the Berlinale, Bread and Salt, which won the Jury Prize in the Horizons Competition at the Venice Film Festival, as well as the Academy Awards nominated EO, which won the jury and best soundtrack awards at the Cannes Film Festival; Saint Omer, which won the Grand Jury Prize and the Lion of the Future - Luigi De Laurentiis Awards in Venice, as well as the Oscar-nominated The Banshees of Inisherin, winner of the Best Actor and Best Screenplay awards, also in Venice, and The Fabelmans, directed by cinema legend Steven Spielberg, which opened the 44th Cairo Film Festival.
Festival Director Amir Ramses, added that: "Choosing the program for 44th edition's films was a great adventure, and full of ambition that made this edition worthy of the name and history of the Cairo Film Festival. We were so pleased sharing this diverse group of distinguished films with festival’s audience, and this year we promise several similar surprises at the level of various film competitions and special festival programs."
Ramses also confirmed a change in the festival's handling of non-fiction cinema by saying: "We also added this year a competition for documentary films as part of festival’s development plan and its absorption of various currents and cinematic styles, not to mention celebrating rather valuable genre in the industry."
The activities of the last edition witnessed participation of a large group of the most significant films that were shown in the most influential international festivals and it received critical acclaim and won many noteworthy awards.
Also for the last edition, two classic Egyptian cinema films were restored and re-presented to the public. There were Diaries of a Deputy in the Countryside by Tawfiq Saleh, and A Song over the Passage by Ali Abdel-Khalek.
The Cairo International Film Festival is one of the longest running festivals in the Arab world and Africa. It acquires its unique status by being the only festival in the Arab and African region registered under Category "A" in the International Federation of Producers in Paris (FIAPF). Other A festivals include Cannes and Venice, and Berlinale.
