The response to the announcement of the launch of the El Gouna Festival was truly exceptional.  The news of this launch was carried in Egyptian, Arab and International medias, in respected magazines such as Variety, Screen and Hollywood Reporter which in turn made sure that it reached almost the entire film fraternity by the time the Cannes Film Festival began. El Gouna Team was greeted with the warmest wishes and congratulatory messages from the most important members of the film festival world.  

The effect of the excitement generated by the news of the launch of the El Gouna film Festival was clearly reflected in the attendance at the welcome party hosted by the founder of the Festival Engineer Naguib Sawiris. 

Among the attendees, to name just a few were, noted film maker Elia Suleiman, Film Producers Tarek Bin Ammar, Dorra Bouchoucha, actresses Lindsay Lohan, Saba Mubarak, Simin Motamed Arya and Anissa Daoud; festival directors Frederic Boyer (Tribeca), Bero Beyer (Rotterdam), Magda Wassef and Youssef Cherif Rizkallah (Cairo). Inspite of his extremely busy schedule, Un Certain Regard Jury member and well known film maker Mohammed Diab also attended the welcome reception.

The mission of the El Gouna Festival wasn’t only to promote the festival and its sections and highlight its plans, but also to be informed about the latest films that were presented in the official programme in completion or out of competition programmes of the Cannes Film Festival as also about the films in the parallel sections such as Directors Fortnight and Critics Week.

The El Gouna Film Festival team spread in all directions to meet representatives of the important Film Production companies and World Sales Agents of films in the Cannes Film Festival and the Cannes Film Market. They also met representatives of various other film festivals and film organisations and use each moment of its time in Cannes to be better prepared for the inaugural edition of the festival that will take place in El Gouna from 22 to 29 September 2017.

The El Gouna Film Festival team hopes for good results from the expedition to Cannes and plans to do its best in order to meet the high expectations that the film world seems to have from it.

Submissions to the festival will open on 4 June 2017.