Cairo 2025

Blending bold Arab selections, strong youth engagement, major Palestinian films, and a confident curatorial vision, the 46th Cairo International Film Festival delivered a focused and forward-looking edition.

Alex Bakri’s power-conscious documentary ‘Habibi Hussein’  dismantles the feel-good façade of “development work,” revealing the power imbalances, condescension and erasure that underpin a German-led attempt to revive Jenin’s cinema.

The Film Verdict continues to spotlight emerging voices in the Arab world, recognising promising filmmakers, actors, and critics whose work is reshaping cinema across the Middle East and North Africa.

The Film Verdict-Cairo International Film Festival Next Generation Award Winners for 2025 honor young Arab talent.

The influence of a conservative new imam on a Moroccan tribal village is an economic, emotional and cultural disaster in ‘Goundafa, the Cursed Song’, which neatly embraces the simplicity of the people and their ancient lifestyle.

Almost 20 years after his death, the legacy of writer Naguib Mahfouz continues to be present on the Egyptian cultural scene.

Revolution takes on a new, animated form in Félix Dufour-Laperrière’s elliptically intriguing film ‘Death Does Not Exist’.

Stylistically bold and morally furious, Ali Tamim’s ‘Noah’ rejects the sanitized, sociological gaze usually cast on racialized communities in Germany to expose the emotional architecture of racism.

‘Azza’ is a whirlwind, four wheel drive tour of a hidden side of Saudi Arabia, in which documaker Stephanie Brockhaus acquaints the audience with a boldly irrepressible young woman in search of her independence.

Like Youssef Chahine’s quadrilogy, which explored his and his family’s defeats, shames, and victories, Namir Abdel Messeeh’s tenderhearted documentary ‘Life After Siham’ turns private mourning into a quiet, searching act of cinema.

After a decade of involvement with the Cairo Intl. Film Festival, Mohamed Tarek steps into the leadership position, prioritizing viewers and revitalizing programming.

Sarra Abidi’s slow-moving existential drama set in a remote Tunisian call center painstakingly illustrates what living a life of quiet desperation really means in ‘Looking for Ayda’.

A journey through love and feelings left unsaid, ‘Triangle of Love’ turns everyday speech into an archive of attachment and grief.

A small domestic malfunction unveils suffocating routine and bureaucratic absurdity in Yasser Shafiey’s Kafkaesque dark comedy ‘Complaint No. 713317’.

In ‘The Silent Run’, Marta Bergman’s reconstruction of a tragic true story about a young migrant family trying to enter England from Belgium carves out its niche in the familiar European genre by shifting viewpoints between the determined, frightened refugees and the police whose job it is to stop them.

Khaled El Nabawy is regarded as one of the most prominent actors of his generation and among the most conscious of art as a cultural and human message that transcends local boundaries.

In a low-key, understated documentary energized by its powerful message, director Zahraa Ghandour makes a soft-spoken, heartfelt plea for compassion for the many abandoned, abused and even murdered female children who are branded as unwanted in Iraq.

Among 120 titles representing more than 50 countries at the 46th Cairo Intl. Film Festival, 14 films are competing for the Golden Pyramid awards, including five Arab features.