El Gouna Film Festival

10/14/2021

Festival Reviews

White Building

White Building

Cambodia’s Oscar submission is a semi-autobiographical critique of how the country’s rampant capitalism frays the traditional social fabric, told with sympathy yet short on dynamism.

Clara Sola

Clara Sola

Costa Rica dancer Wendy Chinchilla Araya gives an eerie, riveting perf but it only goes so far in this unstructured tale of magic realism and female power from debuting director Nathalie Alvarez Mesen.

Amira

Amira

A great deal of attention is about to accrue to Egyptian director Mohamed Diab, who’s just finished shooting on the Marvel franchise series Moon Knight, slated for release sometime in 2022. That’s a good thing, because it likely means his Venice premiered...

Captains of Za’atari

Captains of Za’atari

Everything about Ali El Arabi’s Captains of Za’atari seems custom-made to appeal to a broad public. After all, who doesn’t love an underdog story, this one involving a couple of Syrian teens in a Jordanian refugee camp whose skills at football (European; soccer for...

Life of Ivanna

Life of Ivanna

Documaker Renato Borrayo Serrano offers eye-opening glimpses into the harrowing and chaotic life of a modern Nenets woman that overturn stereotypes about Arctic life.

Murina

Murina

‘Murina’, which won this year’s Camera d’Or in Cannes for first-time director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic, extols female rebellion but walks a dangerous tightrope connecting the male gaze with the body of a rebellious 17-year-old girl.

White Building

White Building

Cambodia’s Oscar submission is a semi-autobiographical critique of how the country’s rampant capitalism frays the traditional social fabric, told with sympathy yet short on dynamism.

Clara Sola

Clara Sola

Costa Rica dancer Wendy Chinchilla Araya gives an eerie, riveting perf but it only goes so far in this unstructured tale of magic realism and female power from debuting director Nathalie Alvarez Mesen.

Amira

Amira

A great deal of attention is about to accrue to Egyptian director Mohamed Diab, who’s just finished shooting on the Marvel franchise series Moon Knight, slated for release sometime in 2022. That’s a good thing, because it likely means his Venice premiered...

Captains of Za’atari

Captains of Za’atari

Everything about Ali El Arabi’s Captains of Za’atari seems custom-made to appeal to a broad public. After all, who doesn’t love an underdog story, this one involving a couple of Syrian teens in a Jordanian refugee camp whose skills at football (European; soccer for...

Life of Ivanna

Life of Ivanna

Documaker Renato Borrayo Serrano offers eye-opening glimpses into the harrowing and chaotic life of a modern Nenets woman that overturn stereotypes about Arctic life.

Murina

Murina

‘Murina’, which won this year’s Camera d’Or in Cannes for first-time director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic, extols female rebellion but walks a dangerous tightrope connecting the male gaze with the body of a rebellious 17-year-old girl.

Awards Corner

El Gouna

  • for
    The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See the Titanic (Finland)
    Director: Teemu Nikki
  • for
    Sundown (Mexico, France, Sweden)
    Director: Michel Franco
  • for
    Captain Volkonogov Escaped (Russia, France, Estonia)
    Director: Natasha Merkulova, Aleksey Chupov
  • for
    Feathers (Egypt, Netherlands, Greece, France)
    Director: Omar El Zohairy
  • for
    The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See the Titanic (Finland)
    Petri Poikolainen
  • for
    Playground (Belgium)
    Maya Vanderbeque
  • for
    The Life of Ivanna (Russia, Norway, Finland, Estonia)
    Director: Renato Borrayo Serrano
  • for
    Ostrov - Lost Island (Switzerland)
    Director: Svetlana Rodina & Laurent Stoop
  • for
    Sabaya (Sweden)
    Director: Hogir Hirori