The tale of a wandering donkey who travels around modern Europe on a road trip through cultures, and in the process conveys a very human story with a heartbreaking touch, EO is the latest work by Polish maestro Jerzy Skolimowski. The film stars Sandra Drzymalska, Isabelle Huppert, Lorenzo Zurzolo and Mateusz Kosciukiewicz.
At this year's Cairo International Film Festival, EO was screened to young Egyptian audiences, hungry for world cinema. It made one's heart rejoice to see the enthusiasm with which these cinema spectators consume films, presenting a passion which has now almost disappeared within western audiences.
The Arab Critics’ Awards for European Films was launched in 2019, as a sort of sister award from the Arab Cinema Center's main Critics’ Awards, which has international critics looking at Arab cinema instead.
At a ceremony held inside Cairo's Opera House, the bustling hub of the screenings during the festival, Hisham Alghanim. the representative of the film's MENA distributor Front Row Filmed Entertainment, accepted the award on behalf of the filmmaker.
While in LA to conduct the Oscar campaign for his film, Skolimowski sent a message. saying "I am incredibly happy that EO has been appreciated by the Arab Critics' Circle as it must mean that my simple story of a donkey has moved people's hearts across different cultures. It is especially important to me that this plea for empathy for animals seems so universal. I thank all viewers who decided to watch the film and all the critics who voted for EO. We are also very proud to have Front Row as our distributors in the territory who will be bringing our film to local audiences soon."
The film will be distributed in 2023 in the Middle East and North Africa.
