Ahmed Helmy and Hend Sabry's Giza Zoo film will premiere in Marrakech
Omar Hilal's Ad'af Khal'o, starring Ahmed Helmy and Hend Sabry and set at Giza Zoo in 2007, gets its world premiere at the Marrakech International Film Festival, which runs 20 to 28 November.
Ahmed Helmy and Hend Sabry's new film, Ad'af Khal'o, will have its world premiere at the 23rd Marrakech International Film Festival in Morocco, CairoScene reported on 2 November. It has been picked for the festival's Celebratory Screenings programme, and the festival runs from 20 to 28 November. No screening date inside that week has been announced yet.
The film is directed by Omar Hilal and brings two of Egyptian cinema's best-known names together on screen. Helmy plays a zoologist and Sabry plays his wife, with Karim Kassem as Helmy's brother. The story is set in 2007 at the Giza Zoo, a place many Cairenes remember from childhood trips. Helmy's character is sinking under money and family troubles, while his wife works to hold the household together. The film mixes drama, suspense and comedy.
It is a busy month for Helmy. His other new film, Hadouta, reaches Egyptian cinemas on 11 November, so audiences here will see him in one film at home while the other opens abroad. A festival premiere is a familiar route for a big Egyptian title before it reaches local screens: it gives the film its first reviews and its first audience outside Egypt before a home release.
For now, the film's release in Egyptian cinemas has not been announced, and neither has the producer behind it. Marrakech is not far for a festival trip, but most readers will be waiting for the local release. When the date is set, it will appear on the cinema chains' listings first.
What to do now: if you want to see Hadouta first, it opens on 11 November. Watch for the Marrakech programme to name the date of Ad'af Khal'o's screening during the 20 to 28 November festival, and for a local release date after that.