Cactus Flower is the first Egyptian film to screen at DIFF

CAIRO – 17 November 2017: The Egyptian film ‘Cactus Flower’ has been selected to be part of the 14th edition of the Dubai International Film Festival, which is set to open on December 6.



Cactus Flower is the feature length debut of female director Hala el-Koussy, the film gets its name from the resilience of the Cactus plant, which is able to still bloom with beautiful flowers during spring in the harsh desert. This theme relates to the film’s three protagonists, strangers who are united by a single disaster which leaves them homeless in Cairo. The film stars Salma Sam, Menha el-Batrawy, Arfa Abdelrasoul, Farah Youssef and Mostafa Darwish.

Cactus Flowers had its premiere at the 46th Rotterdam International Film Festival in January. Koussy, born in 1974, originally studied Business and graduated from the American University in Cairo, traveling to London in 2001 to earn her master’s degree for Image and Communication.

She had won the Hubert Bals Fund Project Development Fund in 2010 from the Rotterdamn Film Festival, and also the Abraaj Capital Prize from Dubai.