Six Egyptian films were selected to compete at the 27th edition of Carthage Film Festival, which runs this year between 28 October and 5 November in Tunisia.

The Tunisian film The Flower of Aleppo, written and directed by Ridha Behi, and starring Tunisian actress Hend Sabry, will open the festival. 



A total of 18 films will participate in the feature film competition (Gold Tanit Award), which this year is headed by Mauritanian filmmaker and producer Abderrahmane Sissako. The jury comprises six other members among them Egyptian director Khaled Youssef.

The Egyptian films Clash, by director Mohamed Diab, and Sins of the Flesh, by director Khaled El-Haggar, are competing in this category.

The list also includes: The Revolution Won’t Be Televised (Rama Thiaw, Senegal), 3000 Nights (Mai Masri, Palestine), Action Commandante (Nadine Angel Cloete, South Africa), Al Medina (Omar Shargawi, Palestine), Ebony (Moussa Touré, Senegal), Divines (Houda Benyamina, Morocco), Kingdom of Ants (Osman Adnan, Iraq), Houses Without Doors (Avo Kaprealian, Syria), The Cow Farm (Ali Sheikh Khudr, Syria), Starve Your Dog (Hicham Lasri, Morocco), Thom (Tahirou Tassere Ouedraogo, Burkina Faso), Hissein Habré, A Tchadian Tragedy (Mahamat- Saleh Haroun, Chad), Chouf (Karim Dridi, Tunisia), Burning Hope (Lotfi Achour, Tunisia), Thala My Love (Mehdi Hmili, Tunisia), and Zaineb Hates The Snow (Kaouther Ben Hania, Tunisia).

As for the short film competition, it comprises 19 films, including the Egyptian award-winning film Dry Hot Summers by director Sherif El-Bendary.

The list also includes: A Place For Myself (Marie Clementine Dusabejambo, Rwanda), More Than Two Days (Ahmed Abdelnaser, Qatar), Let’s Bleat (El Mehdi Azzam, Morocco), Longue Vie aux Morts (Maminihaina Jean-Aime, Madagascar), Marabout (Alassane Sy, Senegal), New Eyes (Hiwot Admasu, Ethiopia), Nyerkuk (Mohamed Kordofani, Sudan), The Orphanage (Hachem Charaf, Bahrain), Silence (Chadi Aoun, Lebanon), Sea of Ash (Michael MacGarry, South Africa), The Boy in the Picture (Hisham Zaman, Iraq), Walls (Narcisse Wandji, Cameroon), Waves 98 (Ely Dagher, Lebanon), Retribution (Abdullah Abuljadail, Saudi Arabia), Talik (Kais Zaeid, Tunisia), The Weavers of the Châambi (Nawfel Saheb-Ettaba, Tunisia), Lila Kalba (Emna Bouyahiya, Tunisia), and Aya goes to the Beach (Maryam Touzani, Morocco).

In addition, a total of 13 films are competing in the first feature film category, among them the award-winning Egyptian film We Have Never Been Kids by director Mahmood Soliman. This competition is headed by French-Tunisian director of photography Sofian Al Fani. 

“Each first film is a battle against the already established world order, since it adds to this world a new way to see and think. It is an adventure from which we can only come out profoundly transformed: For we become a Man of modern times, a Man of Cinema,” reads the award description on the festival’s website.

Other films competing in this category are:  This Little Father Obsession (Selim Mourad, Lebanon), Skin (Afraa Batous, Syria), Maputo (Joao Graça / Fabio Riberio
, Mozambique), Hedi (Mohamed Ben Attia, Tunisia), The Curve (Rafiki Assaf, Jordan), A Mile In My Shoes (Khallaf Said, Morocco), Barakah Meets Barakah (Mahmoud Sabbagh, Saudi Arabia), N.G.O Nothing Going On (Arnold Aganze, Uganda), Let Them Come (Salem Brahimi, Algeria), The Beach House (Roy Dib, Lebanon), I Still Hide To Smoke (Rayhana, Algeria), and The Last of Us (Ala Essine Selim, Tunisia).

Moreover, 18 films are competing in the festival’s fourth competition, the Carthage Ciné-Promesses. The competition is headed by actress and director Maïmouna N’Diaye (Burkina Faso/ France), and also includes Egyptian scriptwriter Mariam Naoum.

The competition was introduced in last year’s edition of the festival and “aims to discover and put forward new talents through the programming of short films made by students in film schools of diverse horizons,” as is mentioned on the website. This year’s list includes two Egyptian films: Life’s Eye by Wafaa Hussein, and Coma, an Egyptian/Syrian film by Yahya Abu Dan.


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