What you need to know about Aswan Women Film Festival

CAIRO – 19 February 2018: Aswan International Women Film Festival chose veteran Algerian director Ahmed Rashdy to be the Jury head of the long feature movies competition.
The short movies competition jury consists of three prominent filmmakers; Egyptian director Ayten Amin, Italian director Emanuel Grozea and Russian director, actress and script writer Yuliya Zakharova.
The second Aswan International Woman Film Festival announced that this year’s edition will bear the name of famed Algerian heroine Djamila Bouhired. The festival will kick off on February 20.
President of the National Council for Women (NCW) Maya Morsy received Algerian activist Djamila Bouhired, who arrived in Cairo on Sunday.

The Algerian activist was born to an Algerian intellectual father and a Tunisian mother who was the first to plant the love of the homeland in Djamila, reminding her that she is Algerian, not French. Despite being educated in French schools, Djamila refused to sing the French anthem, and instead she would say “Algeria is our Mother”.

Djamila continued her school education and then joined the Institute of Tailoring.
She joined the Algerian National Liberation Front when the Algerian revolution broke out in 1954 to fight against the French occupation at the age of twenty. She joined the ranks of the “Fedayeen” and was the first female volunteer to plant bombs on the path of the French colonial soldiers.

She was shot in the shoulder and arrested in 1957; after a long journey of torture in the French prisons, she said her famous sentence, “I know you will sentence me to death, but do not forget that my death will kill the value of freedom in your country. You will not prevent Algeria from attaining freedom and independence”.
This is not the first time for Bouhired to visit Egypt and surely not her first time to be honored in the Arab world, and especially in Egypt. She was officially received and honored by former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was known for his support of the Algerian resistance against the French occupation since 1952. Moreover, she was the subject of Egyptian director Youssef Chahine’s 1958 film "Jamila the Algerian”; also, a number of prominent Arab poets wrote about her as a freedom icon and an example of the women who play remarkable roles in the fight for freedom and liberation.

Legendary Lebanese singer, Fairuz, glorified and sang for the Algerian Revolution through “A Letter to Djamila”, a song released in 1959 and dedicated to Algerian female fighters in the Algerian revolution, among whom heroine Djamila Bouhired is mentioned. On the international level, Bouhired was one of three Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) female bombers depicted in the 1966 film “The Battle of Algiers” and the documentary film “Terror’s Advocate”.

Currently in her 80s, Algerian nationalist, activist and revolutionary Bouhired is considered a fighter for freedom, an Arab icon and a heroine.

The festival released its second edition poster designed by Tamer Ragab. The poster is a white rectangular space dominated by the face of a girl inside a large vacuum.
This face, which is representative of women in general, is made up of pictures of Aswan. The images were mixed in a way to show the imagination and charm of cinema and the dreams of the Egyptian women. Accompanying the text at the bottom is a portrait of Djamila Bouhired.

The second edition of the festival will present the following workshops:

• Scriptwriting Workshop supervised by scriptwriter, Naser Abdel Rahman.
• Documentary Film Workshop supervised by director, Aida el Kashef.
• Cartoon Workshop supervised by Ashraf Mahdy.
• Film Workshop supervised by Dutch director, Rosh Abdel Fatah.
• Cinema Workshop supervised by director, Marieke Van Der Lippe.

Egyptian movies "Zahret al-Sabar" (Cactus Flower) and “El Bahs ‘An Umm Kulthum” (The Search for Umm Kulthum) will participate in the second edition of Aswan International Women Film festival.

“El Bahs 'An Umm Kulthum” movie tells the story of the most prominent singer in the Middle East. The movie highlights how she managed, as an Egyptian woman, to break down and penetrate through all social, religious, political and national barriers existing in the Egyptian society at the time to pursue her dream.

Famed and talented Egyptian actress Yasmine Raees played Umm Kulthum in the movie. “The Search for Umm Kulthum” participated in a number of prominent international film festivals, such as the 74th edition of the Venice International Film Festival that was held from August 30 to September 9, 2017.

“The Search for Umm Kulthum” also participated in the 42nd Toronto International Film Festival that was held from September 7 to September 17 and the 61st London Film Festival, which ran from October 4 to October 15. The movie is directed by Shereen Nishat.

"Zahret al-Sabar" revolves around an Egyptian actress named Aida, who has provincial roots and is struggling to make it to the top. Aida suddenly finds herself kicked out of her house, along with her old, reclusive bourgeois neighbor, Samiha.

With no money and nowhere to go, the two women meet a young man, Yassin, while roaming the streets of Cairo. The three of them attempt to find shelter for the night. Their journey is full of tough moments and challenges, but is unravelled as a journey of self-discovery for all three of them.

An extraordinary friendship unexpectedly grows between Aida, Samiha and Yassin like a dazzling flower blooming from a thorny cactus. The movie was directed by Hala al-Khoussy and stars Menha al-Batraoui, Salma Samy and Marwan al-Azab.

Egyptian actress Menha al-Batraoui won the Muhr Feature award for best actress at the 14th Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) for her role in the movie. "Zahret al-Sabar" was the only film representing Egypt in the Muhr Feature competition at the 14th DIFF ceremony.

The second Aswan Women International Film Festival will be held under the auspices of the ministries of culture and tourism and the sponsorship of the National Council for Women.
The festival's rules stipulate that long films (feature - documentary - motion) must not be less than 60 minutes, while short films (feature - documentary - motion) are not to be more than 30 minutes long.

Accordingly, films that do not meet these conditions will be screened in the official section outside the competition. The second edition will honour famous Egyptian star Mona Zaki, Egyptian director Attiat el-Abnoudy, director and producer Marian Khoury, as well as costume designer Nahed Nasrallah.