The jury panel will also include Oscar-nominee Kaouther Ben Hania (The Man Who Sold His Skin, Beauty and the Dogs), acclaimed Georgian film director Levan Koguashvili (Blind Dates, Brighton 4th and Gogita’s New Life), and an internationally admired Palestinian actor Ali Suleiman (Paradise Now, Huda’s Salon, 200 Meters).

The Red Sea International Film Festival’s second edition will run between 1 and 10 December 2022 in Jeddah.

Oliver Stone is a three-time Academy Award winner, for Best Adapted Screenplay for Midnight Express (1978), Best Director for Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989).

Stone is also behind some of the best known masterpieces of American cinema including Scarface, The Doors, Wall Street, JFK, Midnight Express, Nixon and Natural Born Killers, among others.

Born in Alexandria in 1974 to an Egyptian father and a Russian mother, Nelly Karim began her career as a ballerina before shifting to acting in the early 2000s. She has appeared in over 30 films and television series produced in Egypt.

Karim won the Best Actress Award at the Cairo International Film Festival for her role in Enta Omry and a Special Award at the Cairo National Festival for Egyptian Cinema in 2010 for her role in film One-Zero, directed by Kamla Abouzekri.

A year later, she won the Jury Grand Prize at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards for her role in Cairo 6, 7, 8, which was directed by Mohamed Diab, followed by the Best Actress Prize for the same film at the Arab Film Festival. Karim has also been a popular Ramadan television series actress starring in A Girl Named Zat, Segn-El-Nessa, Taht-Al-Saytara and Seqout Hor (Free Fall).

She served on the jury at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival (2016).

Karim received an honourary award during the opening ceremony of the 37th Cairo International Film Festival (2015).

In 2021, the Carthage Film Festival management awarded her the Golden Tanit Award in appreciation of her cinematic and artistic career.