El Gouna Film Festival is pleased to share highlights from the various working sessions taking place throughout the festival as part of its CineGouna Forum. These sessions, taking place between October 16 and 22, vary in format and include craft masterclasses, workshops and panels with local, regional and international experts, as well as frank discussion about the challenges and opportunities the industry faces.

“El Gouna Film Festival is famous for its film competition, but throughout the days of the festival there is a variety of industry-related sessions that are designed to highlight challenges the industry is facing as well as the growth opportunities,” says Amr Mansi, Co-Founder and Executive Director of El Gouna Film Festival. “These sessions create an environment where filmmakers and attendees can have frank discussions with national, regional and international experts. They also offer an opportunity for young filmmakers to have direct one-on-one learning opportunities from those who have been in the industry for many years to better understand the workings of filmmaking and its subsectors.”

For its 9th Edition, GFF is hosting 40 different working sessions of various formats including 8 masterclasses, 22 panels, 3 case studies, 3 lectures, 2 workshops, one special interactive event, and a talent showcase. These sessions touch on a variety of themes with GFF’s Cinema for Humanity leading the way, along with the subtheme of how the cinema is a collective tool for individuals and communities to archive their stories for future generations. Moreover, different sessions will touch upon a multitude of topics including the business aspect of the industry, gender roles in cinema, and the various technical aspects of the industry.

“We tried to touch upon a wide range of aspects of the film industry using a variety of formats so festival goers can find opportunities to engage with their counterparts in formats that would allow them to gain true insights into the industry,” says Ahmed Amer, Head of CineGouna Forum. “We have always approached setting up CineGouna Forum sessions by identifying the challenges the industry is facing on the ground as well as the feedback from our previous editions. We then seek out experts in each area from Egypt, the region and the world, to reflect a truly global perspective of the challenges as well as opportunities, identifying ways to address the first and benefit from the second.”

Mona Zaki, winner of this year’s Career Achievement Award, will deliver the first masterclass under the title of Beyond Stardom. Mohamed Mashish will be delivering his masterclass about crafting television drama as part of the engagements related to GFF’s news program, CineGouna Series. International expert Angus Finney will be heading a masterclass discussing AI and its impact on the filmmaking industry. Lukas Ettlin will hold a masterclass on action, character and the camera. The famed director Yoursy Nasrallah will deliver a masterclass on the need for cinema reinvention. Head of GFF’s jury, British Director Joanna Hogg will hold a masterclass on the techniques of turning life into film. And finally, Faouzi Bensaidi will hold a masterclass on building a cinematic world.

A multitude of panel discussions will be held touching on a wide range of topics including the role of film festivals today, the changing role of producers in the industry, intellectual property rights, the opportunities and challenges of joint production in the MENA region, cultural authorship and financing the future of film. There will also be panel discussions focusing on highly specific aspects of the industry including the challenges facing female directors, the role of gender and its relationship to the box office, and breaking the divide between critically acclaimed films and the box office success.

There will also be a panel focusing specifically on the impact of the docudrama The Voice of Hind Rajab and the making of documentaries like The American Doctor and the larger discussion surrounding the conflict in Palestine. Several panels falling under the theme of Cinema for Humanity: Archiving Narratives will include a workshop focusing on how to archive the everyday to ensure communities’ collective stories are not lost to future generations, reclaiming and appropriating the archive and its impact on the wider perception of issues, communities and conflicts.

Also, as part of providing specific discussions around short films through posing the question who gets to make the next short and how to think in terms relevant to the making of short films. Moreover, there will be two panel discussions dedicated to analyzing the works of Mohamed Khan – the first focusing his films’ affinity to the unlikely male hero while the second focuses on female characters being at the heart of many of his films.

“Every festival, we approach our panel discussions and masterclasses by asking ourselves what are the pressing issues related to the industry, the world we live in and what topics need to be raised in order to generate healthy conversation and introspective reflection among our festival attendees,” says Andrew Mohsen, Artistic Director of El Gouna Film Festival. “That is what makes all of these working sessions so important for industry members. Our goal is for everyone to walk away from the festival enriched with experiencing some of the best movies internationally and some of the most constructive conversations about the direction in which the industry is going.”

For the full schedule of the working session, please click here.