Cactus Flower, a film by Egyptian director and artist Hala El-Koussy, was selected to compete at the 46^th edition of the Rotterdam International Film Festival, which opens on 25 January.

The feature length film will be screened alongside 15 other films in the Bright Future Award section, which focuses on young and upcoming talents with a brave, singular vision in their filmmaking.

The screening will be the film’s premiere, and stars Menha El-Batrawy, Arfa Abdelrasoul, Salma Sami, Mostafa Darwish, and Farah Youssef.

Cactus Flower is the first feature length film for the director, who has previously created short films.

El-Koussy is an Egyptian artist born in 1974. She studied Business Administration at the American University in Cairo before traveling to London in 2001 for a master’s degree in Image and Communication.

In 2010 she won the Hubert Bals Fund Project Development Fund from the Rotterdam Film Festival, as well as the Abraaj Capital Prize from Dubai.

In addition to a number of solo exhibitions, El-Koussy has joined tens of international group exhibitions in Europe and the Middle East since 2003.

Her work is part of collections around the world including London’s Tate Modern Museum and the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam.

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