The Egyptian Catholic Centre Film Festival, one of Egypt's oldest festivals, has announced winners of its 69th edition, with Saheb El-Maqam and Curfew films scooping most awards: five and four respectively.
Film Curfew (Hazr Tagawel, 2020) won three major awards including Best Actress (Elham Shahin), Best Director (Amir Ramses), Best Film awards in addition to a certificate of recognition awarded to actor Kamel El-Basha.
Directed by Amir Ramses, Curfew premiered at the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) which took place in December 2020. Leading actress Elham Shahin won the Best Actress Award during the CIFF, sharing the award with Natalya Pavlenkova for her role in Conference. Since then the film was screened at number of festivals garnering several awards.
The plot of Curfew takes place on 14 August 2013 during a state-enforced curfew, unveiling the emotions of the characters resulting from unusual circumstances as they interact in one location.
Curfew stars Elham Shahin, Mahmoud El-Leithy, Amina Khalil, and Ahmed Magdy.
Another film that scooped several awards is Saheb El-Maqam which won Best Cinematography given to Director of Photography, Sameh Selim, Best Editing for Rania El-Montaser Bellah, Best Original Score for Khaled Al Kammar, in addition to a special jury award given to director Mohamed El-Adl and a certificate of recognition to the late actor Ibrahim Nasr who participated in the film yet passed away in May 2020.
The film sheds light on a young businessman named Yehia (Asser Yassine) who is going through a crisis and finds support in a holy woman named Rouh (Yosra).
Saheb El-Maqam also stars Amina Khalil, Bayoumy Fouad, Omar Hassan, and Hala Fakher.
The 69th Catholic Centre's Film Festival also gave two awards to film One Day and One Night ('Youm w Leila') directed by Ayman Makram. The film was awarded Best Screenplay to Yehia Fekry and a certificate of recognition to actress Hanan Motawae.
Sandok El Donia (Wonder Box) directed and written by Emad Elbahat (and co-written by Osama Habashy) brought the leading actor Khaled El Sawi the Best Actor award.
The Egyptian Catholic Centre Film Festival is among the oldest film festivals in the country honoring the cinema industry and its artists for several decades. The festival is held on annual basis with a week of screenings.
The 69th edition, preliminarily scheduled to take place between 11 and 18 June with films being screened for the audience, was limited to one day due to the unusual circumstances related to coronavirus pandemic.
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