Cairo International Film Festival’s (CIFF) 41st edition will be dedicated to late Egyptian film critic and historian Youssef Cherif Rizkallah, who passed away on 12 July 2019

The legendary expert who served the festival since 1987 and became the festival’s Artistic Director since 2000, will be honored through many activities at the festival that will be held between 20 and 29 November.

"Rizkallah’s decades of work in popularizing and spreading knowledge about a variety of segments of the seventh art, has left an important mark in the hearts and souls of cinema followers," the festival’s president Mohamed Hefzy stated this week

“We have learned love for cinema from Rizkallah; we hope to continue learning the sincerity towards this field, alongside many values that we often miss from those days,” Hefzy added.

Egyptian critic Ahmed Shawky, the festival’s deputy artistic director who will be the acting artistic director, said he learned a lot from Rizkallah and that stepping into his place is a great challenge that he is willing to take, together with the whole programming team.

The late critic's son, writer Ahmed Rizkallah, has stated gratitude towards the festival committee’s decision saying that "honoring him this year and with such depth demonstrates the festival president’s and the whole team’s understanding of the important role that my father played in supporting the festival throughout the years and spreading the cinema culture in Egypt”.

Rizkallah, who received an honoring on the 40th edition, is an iconic critic who helped in making Hollywood movie reviews popular in the Middle East through presenting and producing a number of important TV shows since the 60s, including Oscar and Tele-Cinema.

The well known journalist, who wrote thousands of movie reviews for Egyptian and Arab newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and TV shows, participated in many film festivals around the world .

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