Egyptian film Safe Exit wins El Gouna's Golden Star for best feature
Mohamed Hammad's Safe Exit, the only Egyptian film in the feature competition, took the festival's top prize of $50,000 as El Gouna's ninth edition closed.
Safe Exit, written and directed by Mohamed Hammad, has won the Golden Star for best feature film at the ninth El Gouna Film Festival, which closed on Friday 23 October. The prize is worth $50,000. It was the only Egyptian film in the feature competition. The jury said the film tells a heartfelt story of how grief and psychological trauma pass from one generation to the next, and praised it for telling it with restraint rather than melodrama.
The film is a co-production of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Qatar and Germany, produced by Khulood Saad, Dorra Bouchoucha, Dina Farouk, Ibrahim El Batout and Mai Odeh.
Other winners: Jordanian actress Rakeen Saad was named best actress for Owl (Bomma), directed by Zeid Abu Hamdan; Ahmed Hassouna's Citizen Osama won both the Golden Star for documentary and best Arab documentary; and Rakan Mayasi's Yesterday the Eye Didn't Sleep was named best Arab feature. In the short film competition, the Egyptian-British short The Evil One by Jad Shaheen took the Bronze Star.
No date has been announced yet for Safe Exit in Egyptian cinemas. Until it is, the film can only be seen at festivals; the next big chance in Cairo is the Cairo International Film Festival from 11 to 20 November, whose full programme and ticket sales had not been announced when this was written.