Mountain Between Us’ to screen in opening ceremony of CIFF

CAIRO- 16 September 2017: The Cairo International Film Festival management chose the American movie “Mountain Between Us” to screen in the opening ceremony of the festival that will kick off on November 21.

The movie is starring the famous American actress Kate Winslet, who won an Oscar for Best Actress for her role in "The Reader" in 2008. She has also been nominated five times an Oscar, including for her role in "Titanic". The movie also stars well-known English actor and musician Idris Elba, who won a Golden Globe for Best Actor from the Golden Globe for his role in “Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom”, in which he played the role of South African leader and activist Nelson Mandela. The film was directed by Palestinian director Hany Abu- Assad.

Head of the Cairo International Film Festival Magda Wassef has invited Winslet and Elba to attend the festival, which is considered one of the 15 most important international film festivals in the world.

In the movie, Winslet plays the role of a photojournalist whose flight from Idaho to New York is cancelled, while Elba plays the role of a British neuroscientist physician who was scheduled to take the same flight. Both agree to charter a small plane to Denver in order to catch a plane to New York. On their way, the pilot of the small plane suffers a heart attack, and they find themselves facing many problems.

Abu Assad is the first Arab director to produce an American film produced by 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, which is one of the largest production and distribution companies in Hollywood and the world. He won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film for the movie “Paradise Now” movie in 2006.

The film was due to be shown in Egypt at the same time it is in the United States of America – the first week of October, but the great film critic Yousif Sharif Rizkallah, artistic director of the festival, asked Abu Assad and the film distributor to convince the film production company to postpone the showing in Egypt in order for it to be first presented in the festival’s opening ceremony, while in the presence of Abu Assad, who was selected to participate in the international jury of the festival.