Alongside Nasrallah, the jury panel will also include Muhammad Taymour, an Egyptian producer, director and video artist; Tharaa Goubail, an Egyptian actress and writer; and Manel Souissi, a Tunsian physician and president of Tunisian federation of cine-clubs.

The festival's fifth edition is scheduled to take place in September 2023.

Yousry Nasrallah is an internationally acclaimed director and screen writer. He studied at the Higher Institute for Cinema in Cairo and launched his career in the field as a film critic for Al-Safeer newspaper and as an assistant director in Lebanon.

He then worked as an assistant director with the late Youssef Chahine in a number of films starting with Wadaan Bonaparte (Adieu Bonaparte, 1985).

His first feature film, Summer Thefts (1988), screened the same year at Cannes in the Directors’ Fortnight selection. A few years later, Mercedes (1993) was selected at the Locarno Film Festival. His other works include Sobian W-Banat (On Boys, Girls and the Veil, 1995) and Al-Madina (The City, 1999), which was awarded Locarno’s Special Jury Prize.

His eponymous book-to-screen adaptation of Elias Khoury’s novel The Gate of Sun was in the Festival de Cannes’ Official Selection in 2004.

He then directed Genenet Al-Asmak (The Aquarium, 2008) and Ehky Ya Sharhazad (Tell Me a Story, Scheherazade, 2009), which was screened at the Venice Film Festival. 

His film Brooks, Meadows and Lovely Faces was presented in the Official Competition at the Locarno Film Festival in 2016.

In 2023, the Locarno Film Festival announced that it has started restoring The Gate of Sun.

Jury members

 

Muhammad Taymour produced the short film, I Am Afraid to Forget Your Face (2020) which won the Palme d’Or award in short film competition at Cannes Festival.

Tharaa Goubail played several roles in television, cinema and theatre. She graduated from the High Cinema Institute in Cairo with a diploma in scriptwriting 2013. Tharaa received the award for Best Actress from the National Egyptian Theatre Festival in 2014.

Trained as a doctor, Manel Souissi has been working in a medical practice for four years. She is involved in civil society, specializing in the management and financing of cultural and associative projects. She has also been a facilitator in the laboratories organized by the Tfanen project, Creative Tunisia.

MedFest Egypt 

 

MedFest Egypt was founded in 2017 with a mission to approach films with a different angle.

In its promotional material, the festival's organisers ask questions such as: “What do films move in you?” With this mind set, the festival looks closer into the impact that films – or even one scene – have on the viewer. How they can change our thoughts and behaviors.

Films "can change the way you view your life," the promo says.

MedFest screens a variety of films – short, feature length, animation and documentaries – and examines their health aspects. The screenings are paralleled with discussions with the filmmakers and health representatives, workshops and lectures.

Since its launch, the festival has screened more than 100 films in 11 Egyptian governorates and internationally. Attended by more than 6,000 viewers until date, many of the films discuss heath issues, women's and children's health, among other topics.

The Egyptian and Arab artists and health representatives tackle also the issues of health of the people working inside film industry, and how the actors can be affected by the roles they are performing.

Over the past editions, the MedFest Egypt created a cooperation with both El Gouna Film Fetsival and Cairo International Film Festival.