El Gouna, Egypt – October 17, 2026

The CineGouna Emerge program, El Gouna Film Festival's flagship talent development program, officially launched its fourth edition on October 16. Participants arrived in El Gouna and were welcomed at a reception, which also marked the launch of the program's first publication, Meet the Experts: Volume One.

This year's cohort is the program's largest to date. 155 emerging filmmakers and industry professionals are taking part, representing 16 nationalities and 20 governorates across Egypt. For the first time, every participant is fully funded and hosted in El Gouna for the length of the program, from October 16 to 23.

Amr Mansi, Executive Director, El Gouna Film Festival:
"CineGouna Emerge reflects what El Gouna Film Festival stands for: cinema for humanity, and a festival that invests in the people who will shape the region's film industry. Welcoming our largest cohort yet, fully hosted in El Gouna, is a milestone we're very proud of. We're grateful to the funders and partners who made it possible."

The reception was hosted by Amr Mansi, Executive Director of El Gouna Film Festival; Andrew Mohsen, Artistic Director of El Gouna Film Festival; and Hayat Aljowaily, Director of CineGouna Emerge & International Engagement.

It was attended by the program's partners' representatives: Laila Hosni, Director of the Sawiris Foundation, the festival's impact partner; Angelina Eichhorst, EU Ambassador to Egypt and the League of Arab States, dr. Hanan Dowidar, Egypt Country Director at the Drosos Foundation, Rawad Halabi, Country Director of the World Food Programme (WFP) and  Members of the festival team and industry leaders also joined.

Since its first edition, CineGouna Emerge has opened the doors of the festival to emerging talent from Egypt, the Arab region and Africa. The program now has more than 300 alumni. This year it builds on that foundation of access with a sharper focus on talent and career development. It offers participants practical skills, individual guidance and concrete pathways beyond the festival.

Participants were chosen by a review committee made up of young talents. The committee assessed each applicant's potential, motivation, and how much they stood to gain from the opportunity. It also considered equity factors, including refugee or migrant background, financial need, and residence in governorates outside Cairo.

New formats for the fourth edition

Alongside its Meet the Experts sessions, the program introduces three new formats this year.

1. Workshops: Four hands-on workshops cover sustainable filmmaking, climate storytelling, film business and financing, and authentic acting.

• Leverage Point Entertainment leads "Sustainable Filmmaking 101" and "Climate Storytelling On Screen." supported by the British Council

• Izzy Abidi of Freshly Ground Stories, a former Netflix and OSN executive, leads a three-day Film Business Skills workshop. supported by the British Council

• Actor and acting coach Amr Gamal leads "The Authentic Artist," supported by 3alam Tany.

2. One-to-one sessions: Participants can book individual sessions with nine experts, with more to be announced, for tailored feedback on their projects and careers. These include two producers from the Fédération des Jeunes Producteurs Indépendants (FJPI), whose participation is supported by the Institut français d'Égypte and the French Embassy in Egypt.

3. Participant-to-participant (P2P) sessions: Facilitated, cinema-themed activities help participants build connections and collaborate, led by the CineGouna Emerge team.

New partnerships and pathways

This edition also brings new partnerships that extend opportunities for participants well beyond the festival week:

• 3alam Tany: The acting training platform is awarding EGP 500,000 in in-kind training grants to the SeeMe participants.

• Two.Five: Three participants selected from the Story Showcase will join the Two.Five program in its January–May 2027 cycle. In return, three Two. Five participants are attending Emerge. They will present their prototypes at the El Gouna Library on October 21, from 2:00 to 2:30 PM.

• Talents Durban (Durban FilmMart Institute): Two Talents Durban participants have joined this year's Emerge cohort, and two Emerge alumni were selected for Talents Durban 2026.

• ESLSCA: Two Emerge participants will receive full scholarships to ESLSCA's bachelor's program in Cinematic Studies, starting September 2027.

• Safe Harbour: Two displaced participants are sponsored through Safe Harbour, a CineGouna initiative with IFFR and IEFTF that supports displaced filmmakers across the Arab world and Africa.

“Talent has never been the scarce thing in this region. Opportunity is. Emerge exists to close that gap, and every edition we ask ourselves how much further we can push it. This year, the answer was: further than the festival itself.”

The Emerge Awards return this year, with participants voting on films in competition.

• The Sawiris Foundation for Social Development, the EU in Egypt and the DROSOS Foundation will each award USD 1,000, one each in the documentary, feature and short film competitions. Each prize goes to the filmmaker whose film receives the most votes from Emerge participants.

• The Institut français d'Égypte will award EUR 500 each to the two participants who votes on the films. The prize is intended to support their craft, for example through equipment or festival attendance.

• All prizes will be announced at the CineGouna Platform closing.

A public showcase, curated around the festival theme

For the first time, the SeeMe and Story Showcase will be open to the public. It takes place on October 22, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM, in the Forum Room. The showcase is curated around GFF9's theme, "For the Record: Archiving Narratives." The theme considers archiving as a question of who gets to say what happened, looking back at the past, sideways at the present, and forward to the future.

Andrew Mohsen, Artistic Director, El Gouna Film Festival "This year's theme asks who gets to tell the story. Opening the Emerge showcase to the public, and curating it around that question, puts the next generation of storytellers at the heart of the conversation the festival is having."

Meet the Experts: Volume One

Meet the Experts: Volume One gathers insights from the previous edition's Meet the Experts sessions and places them in conversation with one another. Supported by the DROSOS Foundation and the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development, it was written by Omnia Najm and designed by Nabeela Roshdy. The book will be available in a limited-edition print run during the festival and online soon. It accompanies the Meet the Experts podcast, which launched on September 27, 2026, and draws on the same sessions.