Cairo Film Connection shines spotlight on projects by female Arab directors

The 11th edition of Cairo Film Connection (CFC) kicks off today (November 17), featuring 16 projects from across the Arab world – with a strong focus on female filmmakers.

The CFC is part of the Cairo Industry Days, the industry platform of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF).

The featured projects, either in development or in post-production, represent 11 Arab countries: Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Palestine, Qatar, Lebanon, Iraq, Tunisia, Sudan, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

The line-up prominently showcases new work by female directors, including Alicante, a new fictional project by French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker Lina Soualem about a young woman on an existential journey that takes her to Spain. Soualem’s first two feature documentaries, Their Algeria (2020) and Bye Bye Tiberias, (2023), premiered at Visions du Réel and Venice respectively.

Rainbows Don’t Last Long is a new fiction feature by Egyptian filmmaker Mayye Zayed, whose documentary Lift Like a Girl won the Golden Dove at Dok Leipzig and received major recognition at CIFF in 2020, including the Bronze Pyramid and Audience Award. Her latest is a tender family road trip tale about an eight-year-old girl losing her eyesight.

Another noteworthy filmmaker is Randa Ali, an Egyptian-American filmmaker whose work often explores themes of alienation and identity. Her feature Rock, Paper, Sea is in development, about an 11-year-old girl sets out to uncover the mystery of her father’s absence. Ali’s previous projects have won awards at festivals such as Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival and Toronto Arab Film Festival.

The selection has nine documentaries alongside seven fiction films. “The distribution happened organically. Many of the most compelling submissions this year happened to be documentaries, formally daring, politically incisive, or engaging with archives, memory, or landscape,” said Rodrigo Brum, the director of CFC. “Several projects occupy hybrid territories, blurring the lines between fiction and documentary. The selection mirrors this evolution rather than any intentional shift.”

The documentary selection includes Sudanese filmmaker Ibrahim Mohamed’s Where Do I Belong?, a story of a family fragmented by decades of displacement across the Global South, now once again caught in the crossfire of the 2023 War in Sudan. He recently co-directed documentary, Khartoum about the ongoing conflict in Sudan which played at both Sundance and the Berlinale this year.

Meanwhile Asphalt, a documentary project by Jordanian filmmaker Hamza Hamideh, explores what it means for a young Palestinian refugee to pursue love and stability in a life shaped by war, loss, and displacement.

Brum highlighted numerous structural challenges facing Arab filmmakers, with the most pressing being access to sustainable resources, including funding, time, space, and creative freedom. He also flagged the pressure of external expectations, which often push Arab cinema toward familiar narratives for international audiences. “Today, filmmakers resist such pressures, embracing diverse forms,” said Brum. “While platforms like Cairo Film Connection cannot solve these systemic issues, they provide a space where filmmakers can present work authentically, connect with collaborators who understand local production realities, and spotlight projects from marginal contexts or without institutional support.”

Standout projects from previous editions of the CFC include French-Egyptian filmmaker Namir Abdel Messeeh’s Life After Siham and went on to premiere at Cannes, winning the Zurich Churches Film Award. It recently won three major prizes at the El Gouna Film Festival (GFF), and is also playing in the Special Screenings programme at Cairo this year where it is premiering for the first time in a new version with Arabic voice-over, replacing the French language used in its Cannes and GFF version.

Similarly, Mohamed Siam’s My Father’s Scent benefited from early support from CFC and earned the best actor award at GFF, while Aïch by Tunisian filmmaker Mehdi Barsaoui went on to premiere at Venice in 2024.

This year’s CFC jury consists of Golden Globe winning Dutch Palestinian director and screenwriter Hany Abu-Assad, Egyptian filmmaker Ayten Amin, known for award-winning feature debut Villa 69 (2013), and Souad (2020), which was selected for both Cannes and the Berlinale, and Susana Santos Rodrigues from Portugal, co-director of the IndieLisboa International Film Festival. They will award the winning projects on November 20.

The projects are competing for $279,500 in prizes, which includes $71,500 in cash prizes and $208,000 in supporting services awards. There are two main cash awards, one for a film in post and another for a film in development, worth $10,000 each.

The cash grants are provided by several organisations, including the Arab Radio and Television Network (ART), Red Sea International Film Festival, Iraqi Cinema, Lagoonie Film Production, Rise Studios, Pathé Touch Africa, AH Media, and Special Touch.

In addition, CFC prizes include invitations for projects to participate in the next edition of Rough-Cut Lab Africa, Durban FilmMart, Medimed 2026, Malmö Film Market, and Amman Film Industry Days. The service prizes include distribution services from MAD Solutions, post-production from Shift Studio, Cinetech, Cult and Ambient Light, sound services from DTS, I Sound, and No’ta, development help from UNFPA and AA Films, and editing services up to 100 hours from Together Media.

CFC projects 2025

In Development: Feature Narrative

Al-Madeeneh 2008 (Yem)
Dir. Yousef Assabahi

Alicante (Fr-Alg)
Dir. Lina Soualem

Ping-Pong (Pal)
Dir. Saleh Saadi

Rainbows Don’t Last Long (Egy)
Dir. Mayye Zayed

Rock, Paper, Sea (Egy-Qat)
Dir. Randa Ali

The Side Effects of Trusting Life (Leb-Ger-Nor)
Dir. Ahmad Ghossein

In Development Feature Documentary

Amana (Trust): A SAWANA Trilogy (Iraq-Egy-UK-Yem)
Dir. Maythem Ridha

Dance With Me (Leb-Cz.Rep)
Dir. Leila Basma

Goodbye Party (Tun-Can)
Dir. Sarra El Abed

I Have Other Friends (Egy)
Dir. Yomna Khattab

Where Do I Belong? (Sud)
Dir. Ibrahim Mohamed

Post-Production - Feature Narrative

All That the Wind Can Carry (Egy)
Dir. Maged Nader

Post-Production Feature Documentary

Asphalt (Jor)
Dir. Hamza Hamideh

Revolutionaries Never Die (Pal-Bel)
Dir. Mohanad Yaqubi

The Colour of Our Time (Iraq-Bel-Egy)
Dir. Hayder Helo

The Day of Wrath: Tales from Tripoli (Leb-Qat-Saudi)
Dir. Rania Rafei