CIFF Appoints Serbian Director to Head Jury of International Competition
Entertainment
Cairo - Asharq Al-Awsat
Serbian director Emir Kusturica will lead the International Competition Jury of the 43rd Cairo International Film Festival, which will run from November 26 to December 5 this year, CIFF announced. Born in Sarajevo in 1954, the Serbian director is one of the world's most prominent filmmakers, whose works won important awards from major international festivals. He studied filmmaking at the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in 1978 in Prague. During his studies, he was awarded several times for his short movies, including Guernica (1978), which won first prize at the Student's Film Festival in Karlovy Vary. After graduation, he directed several movies in his hometown, Sarajevo. In collaboration with screenwriter Abdulah Sidran in 1981, he made the successful feature debut "Do You Remember Dolly Bell?" which won the Silver Lion for best first feature at the Venice Film Festival. His film "When Father Was Away on Business" (1985) won the Palm d'Or at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival and the FIPRESCI prize, and was also nominated for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar. In 1989 he won the Best Director award at Cannes for Time of the Gypsies (1988), a film about the life of a gipsy family in Yugoslavia. His first English movie, "Arizona Dream" (1993), was awarded the Silver Bear at the 1993 Berlin Film Festival. In 1995, his film "Underground" brought him a second Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Kusturica's achievements went behind receiving awards. In 1993, he was chosen as a jury member at the Cannes Film Festival, and in 2005 he was appointed President of the jury. The Cairo Film Connection (CFC) unveiled a selection of 15 feature narrative and documentary projects in development and post-production phases. CFC takes part in the Cairo Industry Days, in partnership with the Arab Cinema Center, during the 43rd edition of CIFF. This year, 110 projects from across the Arab region have applied to partake in CFC, marking the largest participation since its launch. The Connection will present new works by filmmakers Lina Soualem, Soudade Kaadane and Mehdi Barsaoui among other promising directors including Ahd Kamel, Farida Zahran, and Adham Al-Sherif. Chadi Zeneddine, Cairo Film Connection manager said: "Most of this edition's works are composed by first-time filmmakers, joined by acclaimed directors working on their second project, and filmmakers making their first feature narrative debut after establishing themselves within the documentary world, such as Tamara Stepanyan, Sara Shazli and Nameer Abdelmassih." In the past three years, CFC offered awards worth over $600,000, which supported +120 Arab filmmakers including Yousry Nasrallah, Kaouther Ben Hania, Sameh Alaa, Mehdi Barsaoui, Bassel Ghandour, Haider Rashid, and Mayye Zayed. In 2020, the film project "Legend of Zeinab and Noah" directed by Yousry Nasrallah won a $10,000 prize from Lagoonie Film Production, and a $30,000 grant from Mad Solutions. Among the winners was also the movie "Eighteen," by Egyptian Director Sameh Alaa, who won the Short Film Palme D'Or in Cannes Film Festival 2020. The Cairo International Film Festival will honor actor Karim Abdel Aziz for his successful journey with the Faten Hamama Excellency Award. Given it's the only Arabic and African festival enlisted in the International Federation of Film Producers Associations in Paris (FIAPF), the CIFF seeks to screen 100 films from all its categories and contests in its upcoming edition.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3271456/ciff-appoints-serbian-director-head-jury-international-competition
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