LAFF launches competition for cinema students

CAIRO – 2 January 2018: Luxor African Film Festival management decided to add a new competition to its seventh edition for cinema students in Egypt.

The festival management announced special requirements to enter this competition. Firstly, any applicant should be studying cinema and living in Egypt. Secondly, the participating movie should be produced in 2017,its duration should not exceed 30 minutes and the deadline for submitting the movie is January 20.

The festival management announced that launching such competition is a must because Egyptian cinema students are currently producing extremely creative movies worth a special competition.

The president of the Luxor African Film Festival, Sayed Fouad, previously revealed that the seventh edition of the film festival will honour the veteran Egyptian actor GamilRateb and the renowned Senegalese director MoussaToure.

Rateb was born in Cairo in 1926. He first appeared on screen in 1946 in the film, “I Am the East”. After a 20-year breakfrom Egyptian cinema, Rateb later returned to the screens with the film "Al-Kaddab" (The Liar).

The iconic actor also appearedin French and Tunisian cinema. Rateb performed in a lot of distinguished international movies such as “Lawrence of Arabia”, “Trapeze” and “To commit a murder”, among others.

Toure was born in Senegal in 1958. In 1987, he established his production company named “Les Films du Crocodile” that funded a number of important documentaries. Toure released his successful first feature movie in 1991, entitled “Toubab Bi.”

In 2002, he launched Moussa Invite Film Festival which is a showcase for African documentaries. One of his important achievements was directing “La Pirogue” semi documentary movie in 2012.

The seventhannual Luxor African Film Festival will kick off on March 10, 2018. The poster of the festival will bear the face of the late African icon Nelson Mandela.

Fouad explained that he chose Mandela because hisachievements are a symbol ofstruggle and contention for one’s homeland and the people who inhabit the African continent and the whole world. The seventhedition of the festival coincides with what would have been Mandela's centennial birthday; he was born in July 1918 and died in December 2013.

The poster takes the shape of the Africa continent, which is the festival's top priority. The festival will feature a number of films about the life and struggle of Mandela. The festival poster was originally designed by Ahmed Seyam and was used in the third edition of the festival; it was extremely admired by festival guests at that time.

The LAFF was founded and evaluated by the Youth Artists Foundation under the auspices and support of the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Tourism, Luxor governorate and the Film Syndicate.