El Gouna, Egypt  - October 18, 2026

El Gouna Film Festival (GFF) is proud to announce its continued collaboration with Zawya Cinema in Cairo for the fourth consecutive year, bringing some of the festival's best films to cinema-lovers in the capital. This initiative, “GFF x Zawya,” is one way GFF strives to connect the best of the festival's programming with Zawya’s dedicated cinephiles. Over the past years, the collaboration has proven to be successful due to the high attendance and strong positive feedback from the Cairo-based community.

The initiative will present seven films selected by the 9th edition of GFF, which is scheduled to take place between October 15th and October 23rd. The screenings at Zawya will take place between the 17th and 22nd of October. The collaboration is one of the ways through which GFF fulfils its commitment to providing audiences with access to world-class cinema and making curated films accessible to the broader public especially.

The selected films for this year’s GFF x Zawya are: 

AMERICAN DOCTOR
Poh Si Teng | First Feature | United States, Palestine, Malaysia, Qatar, Denmark |English, Arabic | 93 min
Three American doctors of different backgrounds enter Gaza to save lives, and find themselves risking everything to expose the truth. Poh Si Teng is the producer of the Oscar-nominated St. Louis Superman and Emmy Award–winning executive producer of Patrice: The Movie (2024).

CITIZEN OSAMA
Ahmed Hassouna | Palestine, France | Arabic | 69 min

During the genocide in Gaza, a cameraman risks everything to document the many stories of loss and survival. Over twelve months, this raw and intimate portrait of Osama reveals the human cost of conflict through the eyes of those who refuse to look away.

FATHERLAND 
Pawel Pawlikowski | Poland, Germany, Italy, France | German, English, French, Russian | 82 min
From the director of Ida (2013) & Cold War (GFF 2017), an elliptical portrait of identity, family, love, and guilt amid the turmoil of post-war Europe. The film stars Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler as Erika and Thomas Mann, respectively, as they embark on a road trip across Europe.

HOLD ONTO ME 

Myrsini Aristidou | First Feature | Cyprus, Denmark, Greece | Greek | 102 min
An 11-year-old girl tracks down the estranged father she barely knows, and slowly builds a fragile, imperfect bond with him. The film has won the Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

MARIINKA
Pieter-Jan De Pue | Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden | Ukrainian, English, Russian | 94 min

Shot on 16mm, Mariinka follows five young Ukrainians in the Donbas region. Their lives are fractured by conflict, leading to tragic choices like two orphaned brothers fighting on opposite sides. The 10-year study delivers a poetic, heartbreaking portrait of human endurance. Mariinka was CPH:DOX’s opening film, where it won the Audience Award for blending evidentiary weight with cinematic poetry.

PIPES
Karim Kassem | Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia | Arabic | 112 min

In a drought-stricken Lebanese village, a retired water authority worker is drawn back into action when a missing pipe throws the community into disarray. As pressure mounts and villagers demand answers, the search slips increasingly into the absurd, mixing dry humor with grief, frustration, and the lingering mystery of a friend’s death. Ghassan Saad’s Crystal Globe-winning performance anchors the film with exceptional warmth and humour.

ROSE
Markus Schleinzer | Austria, Germany | German | 93 min
A stranger talks his way into a war-shattered village as its hard-working, God-fearing new farmer, concealing an audacious deception at the very heart of who he claims to be. This film is Austria's submission for Best International Feature at the 2027 Academy Awards.

ABOUT EL GOUNA FILM FESTIVAL
El Gouna Film Festival is one of the leading festivals in the Middle East and North Africa. It aims to present a diverse selection of films from around the world, with a particular focus on Arab cinema, to an engaged and knowledgeable audience. The festival seeks to foster cultural exchange through the art of filmmaking, connecting regional filmmakers with their international counterparts in a spirit of collaboration and dialogue. Furthermore, it strives to promote and support the growth of the industry in the region, providing a platform for filmmakers to showcase their work and discover new voices and talents that enrich the world of cinema.

ABOUT ZAWYA
Zawya is a Cairo-based independent cinema platform with a mission to showcase and circulate quality films. Established in 2014 following six successful editions of the Panorama of the European Film, Zawya Cinema offers a diverse program of films from across the globe including features, shorts, documentaries and experimental works in the form of releases, retrospective and curated programs.

In addition to its regular program, Zawya organizes two film festivals annually: the Panorama of the European Film and Zawya Shorts.