“The Cairo International Women’s Film Festival, which has come to be known as “Among Women Filmmakers”, is an independent initiative designed to provide the best films made by women over the past two years. These films, represented at major international festivals are defined by high technical quality and diverse methods of expression.
“It is the first festival for women’s films to be held annually in the Arab world, starting from 2008. Since then, it has been held as the “Arab and Latin-American Women Film Festival” and has become one of the leaders in women’s cinema, not only in Egypt but also in the Arab world.
“Over the past five years, the festival has arranged for screening its films in other countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine, Spain, Bolivia, Argentina, Cuba, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Mexico, El Salvador, Paraguay, Germany and Slovenia.
“With the festival’s success in attracting large numbers of viewers and stimulating exciting cinematic, social and political discussions, there emerged a need to expand. In its sixth session, which will be held from 16 – 22 November, the festival is becoming an international women’s film festival, including movies from all over the world. This means twice number of films presented and venues needed for screenings and various sections of the festival, in addition to increasing the number of parallel activities such as video workshop, roundtable and lecture.
“By inviting some filmmakers to Cairo to attend film-screenings and engage in discussion with the public, the festival is a meeting point and an opportunity for an exchange of experiences between the public and many women filmmakers in the Arab region and the world.
“The festival presents fiction films, documentaries and animation from more than 20 countries, from Argentina to Romania, from Palestine to India and from Brazil to Algeria.
“In addition, there is a great diversity in country participation as well as in terms of films presented, visual language and content, there by reflecting the latest cinema trends worldwide.
“The festival objective is to bring its films to the largest sector of cinema audience. Accordingly, all the films shown are free of charge, open to the public, and translated into Arabic.
“In appreciation of the role of the Egyptian public in support of the festival over the past years, and in affirmation of our confidence in their assessment of the films shown, the festival offers a 36,000 Egyptian pound one prize for “Best Film”. The prize will go to the film that gets the largest number of votes cast by the public after watching each film.
“Finally, we hope that the festival will be a real channel for presenting the best films made by women in the world, and will contribute to raising exciting cinematic and social issues.”
Festival initiator and director
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