Safe Exit wins El Gouna’s Golden Star for best feature
Mohamed Hammad’s Safe Exit won the Golden Star for best feature at the ninth El Gouna Film Festival in Egypt. The 23 October closing ceremony also honoured All the Lovers in the Night in the feature competition and Citizen Osamah in documentaries. American Doctor received the audience award, while the festival announced winners across acting, short-film and environmental categories.
Arts··Evening
Safe Exit leads the feature awards
Safe Exit, directed by Mohamed Hammad, won the Golden Star for best feature at the ninth El Gouna Film Festival. The festival concluded with a closing ceremony on 23 October in El Gouna, the Egyptian town on the Red Sea. The feature award placed Hammad’s film at the head of the competition’s announced winners. The ceremony also named prizes for documentary and short films, performances and audience favourites.[1], [2]
The Golden Star carries a prize of 50,000 dollars. Yukiko Sode’s All the Lovers in the Night received the feature Silver Star and 25,000 dollars. Jovan Ginic won best actor for his performance in After Three Weeks, directed by Miroslav Terzic. Rakeen Saad received best actress for her role in Zaid Abu Hamdan’s Bomah, completing the ceremony’s two individual acting awards.[1]
Documentary and Arabic-language films receive prizes
Rakan Miassi’s Yesterday the Eyes Didn’t Sleep won the best Arabic feature award, with 20,000 dollars, while Yassine Idrissi’s Halima received a special mention. In the documentary competition, Ahmed Hassouna’s Citizen Osamah won the Golden Star and 30,000 dollars. The festival thus announced separate results for the feature and documentary competitions as well as the award for an Arabic feature.[1]
Dongnan Chen’s Whispers in May took the documentary Silver Star and 15,000 dollars. Rasha Shirazi’s War on Women received the Bronze Star, carrying 7,500 dollars. These awards followed Citizen Osamah in the documentary results, with the three films receiving the Golden, Silver and Bronze honours respectively. The monetary prizes were announced with the individual award categories at the closing ceremony.[1]
Short films, audiences and environmental cinema
Andrés Davidson’s Stolen Memories won the short-film Golden Star and 15,000 dollars. Nobody Knows the World received the Silver Star and The Malignant took Bronze. Marie-Rose Osta’s One Day Born was named best Arabic short. The Cinema for Humanity Audience Award, worth 20,000 dollars, went to Bo Si Teng’s American Doctor, chosen by festival audiences. Gabriela Osio Vanden’s Nuisance Bear received the environmentally focused Green Star. Moroccan director and screenwriter Faouzi Bensaïdi was honoured with a Creative Achievement Award at the closing ceremony.[1]
