(Aditya Shaw, Intern Journalist): Amid parliamentary elections in Egypt, US Ambassador Jonathan R. Cohen at the Al Guna Film Festival has acknowledged that cinema is the most powerful art medium to connect countries. He has promised every kind of American help in filmmaking to young filmmakers from Arab countries. He said that many such stories are scattered in Arab countries on which films can be made for a better world. America has high technology of cinema.
Together they can work wonders. He recalled the legendary Egyptian actor Omar Sharif, who has acted in two David Lean films in Bollywood. Omar Sharif is remembered worldwide for playing lead roles in other films including ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ (1962) and ‘Dr. Jivag’ (1965). This is the fourth year of the Al Guna Film Festival. This time the main theme is cinema for humanity.
US Ambassador to Egypt Jonathan R. Cohen presented cash prizes of Rs 2 crore for selected 18 film projects from Arab countries like Lebanon, Sudan, Palestine, Egypt, etc. He said that the US would soon organize a conference of Bollywood and Arab filmmakers. New initiatives are being seen in Arab cinema on the refugee problems, political instability, women empowerment, and other human subjects. In this sequence, a detailed agreement on the refugee problem in Egypt was signed between the Al Guna Film Festival and the United Nations Ambassador for Refugee Affairs in Geneva (Switzerland).
The first film festival was held on 22 September 2017 in the private town of Al Goona, located on the banks of the Red Sea, 445 km from the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Due to the quality of films, human concerns, freedom of thought, and marketing, it has become the most prestigious film festival in the Arab world in just four years. Samih Saviris, a Christian industrialist, and his brother Nagub Saviris have inhabited the city. His company Orasakam is the producer of this film festival. The Al Guna Film Festival has been started by the Saviris brothers on the initiative of famous Egyptian actress Bushra Roja, who played the lead role in Mohammad Diab’s film ‘678’.
The fourth Al Guna Film Festival screened 63 selected films from around the world and was attended by nearly seven hundred people associated with cinema. Italy, France, Switzerland, Dubai, and the United States have heavily assisted in the event. The jury’s chairman, noted British filmmaker Peter Weber, presented the Career Achievement Award to veteran French actor Gera DePardivu and the Omar Sharif Award to young French actor Saeed Tgamavu of Moroccan origin. Egyptian veteran Onasi Abu Saif and senior actor Khalid Al Sawi, who directed art in hundreds of films around the world, were awarded the Life Time Achievement Award. Famous Lebanese singer Rami Ayash and his troupe performed amazing music. The fourth Al Guna Film Festival marked the beginning of Tunisia’s female filmmaker Kauther Ben Hania’s film The Man Who Sold His Skin.
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