Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival Announces Return After One-Year Break

Tara Karajica Egyptian director Alaa Dajani’s “The Native Dance,” a documentary that tells the story of Younis Abdallah and his comrades who were among the 300,000 peasants conscripted into the Egyptian Labor Corps in 1917, many of whom were dispatched to Europe to dig trenches for allied defense in World War I, took the top prize in the Pitching Forum of the Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival’s Agora Docs industry program, which wrapped Wednesday. The awards ceremony concluded a session that saw more than 400 professionals taking part both in-person and online in the Agora activities. In “The Native Dance,” which is produced by Kesmat El Sayed and Laura Kloeckner (SEERA Films), the jury found “a film that promises a compelling visual approach combining archive material and animation, telling the story about the British forcing peasants from Egypt to dig trenches in Europe during WWI,” read the jury’s statement.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Taylor Sheridan’s upcoming Paramount+ series “Lioness” has cast Bassem Youssef in a guest starring role, Variety has learned exclusively. Youssef will now appear in a cast that includes Zoe Saldaña, Laysla De Oliveira, Dave Annable, Jill Wagner, LaMonica Garrett, James Jordan, Austin Hébert, Jonah Wharton, Stephanie Nur, Hannah Love Lanier, Michael Kelly, Morgan Freeman, and Nicole Kidman. The official logline states that the show “is based on a real-life CIA program and follows Cruz Manuelos (De Oliveira), a rough-around-the-edges but passionate young Marine recruited to join the CIA’s Lioness Engagement Team to help bring down a terrorist organization from within.”

Saudi Arabian family comedy Sattar, set against the world of freestyle wrestling, has continued its record-breaking run at home to become one of the country’s top five highest-grossing local movies ever.

After having to postpone her wedding at least twice, former Love Island star and TV personality Olivia Attwood has confirmed that her wedding to fiancé Bradley Dack will finally go ahead in 2023. Although she’s been keeping the exact date a secret, her wedding preparations are in full swing, with Olivia’s latest pre-wedding treatment being the Nefertiti lift.

Sundance prize winner Sofia Alaoui, Yemeni-Scottish Oscar-nominee Sara Ishaq and Emmy-feted Egyptian cinematographer Muhammad Hamdy will be among filmmakers presenting projects at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra event, unfolding in Qatar March 10-15.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Utopia and Sumerian have acquired worldwide rights to Eddie Alcazar’s Sundance-premiering “Divinity.” The film had a memorable premiere in Park City, where there was a medical incident (unrelated to the movie) during its world premiere at the Egyptian Theater. Guests in attendance — who received zines and VHS boxes upon arrival — were also treated to writer-director Alcazar showing up to the event in a terrifying mask. Executive produced by Steven Soderbergh and starring Stephen Dorff, the experimental film is set in an otherworldly human existence, where the creation of a groundbreaking immortality serum named “Divinity” is wreaking havoc.

Around 30 bodies have been recovered off the southern coast of Italy, according to RAI state radio.

Paris Hilton shocked fans last month when she revealed that she’d welcomed her first child via surrogate with her husband Carter Reum. The 42 year old, who recently threw a star-studded birthday party where celebs including Rebel Wilson were guests, took to Instagram on 24 January to share the happy news. Sharing a snap of her son’s hand wrapped around her thumb, she wrote: “You are already loved beyond words” alongside a blue heart emoji.

Paris Hilton shocked fans last month when she revealed that she’d welcomed her first child via surrogate with her husband Carter Reum. The 42 year old, who recently threw a star-studded birthday party where celebs including Rebel Wilson were guests, took to Instagram on 24 January to share the happy news. Sharing a snap of her son’s hand wrapped around her thumb, she wrote: “You are already loved beyond words” alongside a blue heart emoji.

Suki Waterhouse and Robert Pattinson are more loved-up than ever five years on.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival will be back this year after being put on hiatus in 2022. Organizers have announced that the prominent Arab fest’s 6th edition will take place in the Red Sea resort town Oct. 13-20, while the fest’s industry arm the CineGouna Platform, will run Oct. 15-19. The fest, which was launched in 2017 by Egyptian telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris – whose brother Samih built the El Gouna resort in a swathe of desert near Hurghada, a tourist town 250 miles south of Cairo – had been cancelled last year after five successful editions. Though no reason was given, the one year break was possibly due to Egypt’s Red Sea area is being impacted by the war between Russia and Ukraine, whose citizens represent about 40% of beach tourists who travel to Egypt annually.

, Nicole is back with Mahmoud's family and is told that she doesn't need friends in Egypt outside of their family.Nicole has moved to Egypt to be with Mahmoud for a second time, after she left the first time due to having trouble adapting to the stricter Muslim culture. For example, Nicole doesn't like adhering to the way women are expected to dress and questioned why Mahmoud doesn't have to follow the same standards. In this clip, she speaks to her sister-in-law, Fatima — who moved from China to marry Mahmoud's brother — and asks her for tips on how she has learned to adjust.

Keep up to date with all the big stories from across Greater Manchester in the daily Mancunian Way newsletter. You can receive the newsletter direct to your inbox every weekday by signing up right here.

Turkey and Syria have been hit by two more huge earthquakes just two weeks after the border between the countries suffered its last devastating tremor.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egyptian director Abu Bakr Shawky, whose first feature “Yomeddine” had the rare distinction of making the competition cut for Cannes, has completed his followup, the Saudi-set travel movie “Hajjan” which is expected to soon surface on the festival circuit.  Somewhat similarly to “Yomeddine,” which made a splash in 2018, the hotly anticipated “Hajjan” involves a journey across the desert, this time embarked upon by a boy and his camel. The big-budget film, which was shot mostly in the sprawling area situated along Saudi’s Red Sea coast in Tabuk – in the northwest of the kingdom – is about a young boy named Matar who, after the death of his brother on the camel race track, tries to avenge his death. To do so he becomes a camel jockey, only to find himself entangled in a battle for his own freedom.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent While Sweden’s Ruben Östlund grabbed some Oscar nominations and took home Cannes’ Palmed’Or last year, two other Scandinavian filmmakers basked in the international spotlight following their Cannes competition premieres: Ali Abbasi with “Holy Spider” and Tarik Saleh with “Cairo Conspiracy” (previously titled “Boy From Heaven”). Abbasi, an Iranian-born Danish helmer, and Saleh, a Swedish director whose father is Egyptian, are part of an exciting new generation of Nordic helmers who are shaking up traditional Scandinavian cinema. These filmmakers are delivering singular and timely movies shot abroad or in different languages, weaving together genres and political elements.

Ed Meza @edmezavar German cinema looks set for a major boom this year with a strong lineup of diverse works that span historical dramas, coming-of-age tales, high-octane nostalgia, animation and sci-fi fun. The Berlin Film Festival is bowing a muscular selection of local titles, among them “Afire,” by Berlinale mainstay Christian Petzold (“Undine”), screening in competition. The films centers on a group of young people staying at a holiday house near the Baltic Sea during a hot, dry summer, exploring volatile emotions that start to sizzle when a wildfire spreads through the surrounding forest. Likewise vying for the Golden Bear is Margarethe von Trotta’s biopic “Ingeborg Bachmann: Journey Into the Desert,” starring Vicky Krieps (“Corsage”) as the radical Austrian author. The film examines her relationship with Swiss writer Max Frisch and her 1964 journey of self-discovery through the Egyptian desert.

Greater Manchester is a region rich with history, natural beauty, and architectural oddities.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Sundance standout film “Animalia,” by French-Moroccan filmmaker Sofia Alaoui, has been acquired for distribution across the Middle East and North Africa by Egypt’s Film Clinic, the shingle headed by producer Mohammed Hefzy. Film Clinic, a top film and TV production company that branched out into theatrical distribution in 2016, picked up “Animalia” from Paris-based sales company Totem Films. Alaoui’s genre-bending pic is the tale of a pregnant young woman in Morocco whose life is upended by an alien invasion. In her review, Variety review critic Jessica Kiang praised “Animalia” as “a compellingly different cultural and social perspective on a classic sci-fi premise.” “Alaoui, working from her own taut, confidently ambiguous script, also gets to comment on the position of women in Muslim societies and the limits of wealth and organized faith, as well as elegantly outlining the eerie experience that is suddenly finding yourself startlingly alone during a time of shared global panic,” Kiang noted.

It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday — especially when it’s New Music Friday! We’re breaking down this week’s best new tracks to keep on your radar.