Elsawy, Elsherbiny, Dawoud to host the opening ceremony of CIFF

CAIRO – 19 November 2019: Famed Egyptian stars Khaled el Sawy, Dina el Sherbiny and Ahmed Dawoud will host the opening ceremony of the 41st edition of Cairo International Film Festival.

The 41st edition of Cairo International Film Festival will Kick off from November 20-29. This edition is expected to hold a lot of surprises executed by its creative filmmaker Mohamed Hefzy and its executive director Omar Kassem.

This edition will honour renowned Egyptian filmmakers Sherif Arafa and Menna Shalaby.

The visionary and Legendary director, screenwriter, actor and animator, Terry Gilliam will be honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Gilliam is set to accept the accolade during the opening ceremony of the Festival at The Cairo Opera House.

The Irishman will be the opening movie of the festival and Mexico will be the country in focus of this year edition.

Cairo International Film Festival becomes the first Arab festival and second African to sign the Gender Parity Pledge 5050×2020, joining this commitment launched during Cannes Film Festival in 2018.

The festival is committed to promote gender equality and transparency, during its 42nd edition in November 2020.

Egyptian star Sherine Reda is a jury member in Best Arab Film Award, famed Egyptian actress Hanan Motawie is a jury member in Cinema of Tomorrow jury and Egyptian Hearthrob actress Hana Shiha is a jury member in Horizons of Arab Cinema Competition.

The 41st edition of Cairo International Film Festival will be dedicated to the festival artistic director the late great film critic Youssef Sherif Rizakallah.

The festival prepared a film about Rizakallah to honour his long fruitful cinematic career that enriched Egyptian cinema.

DMC channels will sponsor Cairo International Film Festival's 41st edition. DMC will broadcast the opening and closing ceremonies in addition to the daily messages of the events.

President of DMC channels Hisham Soliman explained that the channel has introduced new coverage methods to convey the real atmosphere of the festival’s events from inside the cinemas. The channel will present a diversified program of the festival's events and will highlight daily events through news broadcast on the screen and on social media platforms.


During the period from Nov. 21 to 26, the festival will hold the second edition of Cairo Days for the Film Industry, which provides professionals with opportunities for partnership and networking with the international film community, in addition to attending seminars, workshops and discussion panels.

Valuable prizes will be awarded to winning film projects in the development and post-production stages, which are valued up at $200,000.