Prior to its selection for Malmo Industry Days, Hamlet from the Slums had been also selected among 16 projects for the Festival de Cannes’ L’Atelier programme.
The film also received other awards and grants during the fourth edition of El-Gouna Film Festival (2020) including; $20,000 from Shahid, $10,000 from Sparkle Media Services, the Film Independent and US Embassy Virtual Residency award and the Khaled Bichara Award for Egyptian Independent Filmmakers.
The film's producer Ahmed Amer was invited to participate in the 2021 Rotterdam Lab.
Starring Ahmed Dash, the film follows an 18-year-old Ahmed who lives in a Cairo slum under the threat of brutal urban renewal.
MID is taking place during the 13th Malmo Arab Film Festival, which kicked off on 28 April and continues until 4 May.
Hamlet from the Slums is one of the 13 projects chosen to compete for awards across three categories: short films in development, feature fiction films in development, and feature documentaries in development.
The projects were selected from 39 submissions representing 19 countries, each being a coproduction between Sweden and an Arab country.
Hamlet from the Slums's Egyptian producer is Ahmed Amer who also co-wrote the script while the Swedish producer is Erik Andersson. The film sees also contributions of other producers from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Lebanon and France.
Fawzi-Saleh is best known for his critically-acclaimed 2018 film Poisonous Roses. The film garnered several awards, including Best Feature Film at Africa International Film Festival (2018), TikTok Award and Arab Cinema's Horizons Award at Cairo International Film Festival (2018), and Platinium Remi Award for Dramatic Original Feature at WorldFest Houston (2020).
The director's previous works include Living Skin (2010) which he also write the script, and scriptwriting for The Thief TV series (2020-2021).
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