Cairo film festival begins with a bang

The 38th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) kicked off on Tuesday with the Egyptian feature, Kamla Abuzekri’s ‘A Day for Women’ playing to a packed house at the Cairo Opera House.
The event features more than 200 movies from 61 countries with 16 of them contesting for the Golden Pyramid Best Film Prize.
The competition also includes big titles from Cannes, including the Romanian film ‘Dogs’ by Bogdan Mirica and the celebrated Moroccan-Spanish production ‘Mimosas’ by Oliver Laxe.
This year’s edition is dedicated to late iconic Egyptian actor Mahmoud Abdul Aziz who passed away earlier this week.
The Cairo festival also includes a special category for Egyptian cinema, called ‘Panorama’.
The opening show paid a special tribute to Bollywood celebrities, who enjoy a great fan following in Cairo. 
The show, which was directed by Egyptian theater director Khaled Galal, featured Egyptian singer Nesma Mahgoub, who sang a number in which she mentioned the names of international celebrities. “Bollywood celebrities are my love since very long,” sang Nesma during the show.
Three films from India are participating at this year’s Cairo International Film Festival.
CIFF has three parallel programs for the third year in a row: Prospects of Arab Cinema, New Horizons Competition and the Critics Week.
The most recognized title from the Prospects list is Mahmoud Sabbagh’s critically acclaimed ‘Barakah Meets Barakah’ (Saudi Arabia), a romantic comedy set in Saudi society.
The Cairo International Film Festival is one of the 14 most important film festivals in the world, and the only one in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, to be accorded category “A” status by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations. 
The festival runs till Nov. 24.

Source: Arab News