Many Egyptian and Arab stars hit the red carpet at the opening of the 44th Cairo International Film Festival which kicked off Sunday (13 Nov., 2022) night at Egypt’s famous Opera House.
For this year’s edition, dozens of Egyptian and Arab celebrities attended the annual event — one of the most renowned in the Arab world.
It was pointed out by Hussein Fahmy, Festival President that, “There is a war going on in Europe and there is very high tension in East Asia with very difficult economic conditions. All of these represent a very big challenge for us. We also have the COP27 that is still ongoing, and at the end of the festival there is the World Cup. Thank God we are struggling to stay afloat.”
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Quite imperatively, the festival celebrates what legendary Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr described during the opening as “universal language of cinema.” Tarr himself has received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award this year.
Accordingly, “The industry all over the Arabic world is still struggling, but Egypt is an exception, as Tunisia also is an exception because there are some countries who have more films than others. So it is also our role to raise the voices of all these countries, and this is the maximum we can do.“ says Lynda Belkhiria, Head of Cairo Film Connection.
It was further stated that, the event will include 97 films from more than 52 countries. The president of this year’s international jury is Japanese director, Naomi Kawase.
This 44th edition is running for 10 days until November 22nd.
