Cairo International Film Festival
The Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) is an international eleven day film festival in Cairo .
history
As early as 1975, the Egyptian film industry was the largest in the Arab world. In that year the later Egyptian film critic Kamal El Mallakh visited the Berlinale and recognized the need to hold a comparable festival in his home country.
Together with a group of other film critics, he founded the Cairo International Film Festival in 1976. It was the first film festival in the Middle East .
In the first year around 100 films from 33 countries were shown. 14 films from 14 countries were shown in the competition. Since then, the focus of the festival has been on the one hand on strengthening the international perception of Egyptian filmmaking and on the other hand on films that raise difficult political and human questions.
In 2009 Ezzat Abou Aouf was the festival's president.
Prices and categories
The international jury of the festival awards the following prizes:
- Golden Pyramid (Best Film / Production)
- Silver pyramid (special prize from the jury / director)
- Best Actress
- Best actor
- Best director
- Saad El Din Wahba Prize (Best Screenplay)
- Naguib Mahfouz Prize (Best First or Second Film)
- Best Artistic Contribution (Director)
- Best Arabic-language film (prize money EGP 100,000)
Those invited films that take part outside the competition will be shown in the categories Festival of Festivals, Information Section, Retrospective, Tribute, Special Section and Film Market.