Egyptian film critic Samir Farid has expressed his gratitude at receiving a lifetime achievement award for film criticism at the Osian's Cinefan Film Festival of Indian, Asian and Arab Cinema, which opened Friday in New Delhi. 

“It's a surprise receiving an award from a such a big country like India, whose literature, history and cinema I have read a lot about,” he said.

Farid stated that the Osian's Cinefan Film Festival is the only festival in Asia that shows interest in Arab cinema, adding that India's cinema is vast on the production level, producing around 1000 films a year.

“Egypt produces around 40 films a year. It was about 120 in the 1990s. The industry is still alive and popular. Egyptian films have more than 70 per cent of the local market share while 30 per cent is from American films. Hindi films are limited to five films a year, as [distributors] are scared of the Indian film market. There is only Egyptian or American films, no third kind of culture existed for the last 20 years,” Farid said, as cited by the festival's official Facebook page.

The festival is screening 15 world premieres, eight regional premieres, 104 Indian premieres and 13 Asian premieres from China, Estonia, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Morocco and Algeria, among other Asian and Arab countries.