"Cairo Festival Director Amir Ramses on Competing With Rival Arab Fests for Region’s Top Talent Egyptian filmmaker Amir Ramses is no stranger to the Cairo Intl. Film Festival. The director’s featu
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		"Cairo Festival Director Amir Ramses on Competing With Rival Arab Fests for Region’s Top Talent

Egyptian filmmaker Amir Ramses is no stranger to the Cairo Intl. Film Festival. The director’s feature debut, “End of the World,” bowed at the prestigious Arab fest in 2005, and he returned 15 years later" "--START AD- #TheMummichogblogOfMalta Amazon Top and Flash Deals(Affiliate Link - You will support our translations if you purchase through the following link) - https://amzn.to/3CqsdJH Compare all the top travel sites in just one search to find the best hotel deals at HotelsCombined - awarded world's best hotel price comparison site. (Affiliate Link - You will support our translations if you purchase through the following link) - https://www.hotelscombined.com/?a_aid=20558 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."" #Jesus #Catholic. END AD---" " with “The Curfew,” bookending a chapter of his career in which the prolific filmmaker garnered worldwide acclaim.

But for the Cairo-born Ramses, who was appointed festival director earlier this year, the homecoming is a return to his roots in more ways than one. It was at the long-running festival that Ramses “was introduced to the many worlds of cinema,” and accepting the position of festival chief “was a way to give back and pay my respect to an institution that made me the filmmaker I am today,” the director told Variety.

It’s a transition year for the Cairo Film Festival, which runs from Nov. 13 – 22. Ramses was appointed just weeks after Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy stepped down as festival president, after a four-year tenure in which he helped to revamp the leading Arab event, while incoming industry head Reem Allam will take the reins of the Cairo Industry Days platform.

Ramses served as artistic director of Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival from 2017 to 2021, a period in which he helped land the glitzy Red Sea resort on the world cinema map. “The reason why I was brought to Cairo in the first place is because I came from Gouna, and I managed to get the kind of lineup that we brought to Gouna from the first edition. Managing to start a festival where you have in your competition the Golden Palm from Cannes, winners from Locarno, from Karlovy Vary,” he said.

“That was my first target, to be able to prove that this experience is repeatable. My main concern was recreating my Gouna experience as an artistic director, recreating the ability to make Cairo as important in its film lineup as it is in its industry section.”

Ramses’ feature “The Curfew” premiered at the Cairo Intl. Film Festival in 2020. Courtesy of Red Star Films It was Hefzy who launched Cairo Industry Days five years ago, quickly building it into one of the leading industry events in the Arab film world. Yet despite its success, Ramses still saw an opportunity this year to give the platform an “upgrade.”

“It has been doing great, it has been taking great steps. But after five years, if you don’t change, you’re getting smaller,” he said. “I wanted to build on the success that happened in years before and take things a step further.”

One notable change has been to the festival’s program of workshops and masterclasses, which this year will focus on greater engagement with the Egyptian film industry. “When you do a masterclass, usually it’s open for the public, media, cinephiles,” said Ramses. “That makes amazing masterclasses, but the fact that they’re open to a general audience makes them a bit generic. You have to be on the level of each and every one of the audience.” This year the festival wanted to take “the next step,” he said, by offering practical tools for Egyptian filmmakers.

To that end, Cairo is hosting a 10-day workshop led by iconic director Béla Tarr in which he will offer one-on-one mentoring to young filmmakers, who will use the course to develop and shoot a scene based on a theme proposed by the Hungarian screen legend. “T