El Shooq snatches the Golden Pyramid and Microphone wins best Arab film
Menna Taher, Friday 10 Dec 2010
The Cairo Film Festival's winners were announced on Thursday, 9 December with Egypt garnering a large portion of the awards


The winners of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) were announced on Thursday, 9 December at the festival’s closing ceremony, which took place at Cairo Opera House.

The Egyptian film, El Shooq (Longing), directed by Khaled El Hagar, won the Golden Pyramid award for best film in the international competition. In second place was the Irish film, As if I’m not There, which revealed the horrors of the Bosnian war.

The best actor award in the international competition was split between Italian actor, Alessandro Gassman and Egyptian actor, Amr Waked for their roles in the film The Father and the Foreigner.

Sawsan Badr in El Shooq and Isabelle Huppert, in the French film, Copacabana, shared the prize for best actress.

The award for best Arab film, for its modern approach and the important issues it addressed, went to the Egyptian film, Microphone, directed by Ahmed Abdalla.

The silver award in the digital competition went to the Ugandan film, Imani, directed by Caroline Kamya, while the golden award of $10,000 went to the Dutch film, Joy, directed by Mike De Jong, which was described as ‘a gem’ among the digital film selection.

The prize for best director went to Svetoslav Ovtcharov for his film, Voice Over, while the Saad El-Din Wahba award for best script went to the Father and the Foreigner.

The best artistic contribution award (the Youssef Chahine prize) for best cinematography and music went to the film, Emir from the Philippines and the Naguib Mahfouz prize for the best first work of a director, went to the Polish film, Born of the Sea by Andrzej Kotkowski.

Certificates of appreciation went to the Moroccan film, The Mosque by Daoud Aould Syad, and to the actress, Hend El Fahem for her debut role in the Tunisian film, Late December. The award for best Arab screenplay was split between the Iraqi, Ibn Babel and the Lebanese film, Stray Bullet.

The international federation of film critics’ prize went to Voice Over, a film about how living under a dictatorship interferes with the lives of ordinary people.




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