The Enterprise Guide to the Cairo International Film Festival

The 47th Cairo International Film Festival is on. For 10 days, Cairo turns into an open house for cinephiles, with a program of 145 films from 64 countries. Screenings are spread across the Egyptian Opera House, Downtown, and Zamalek cinemas, and a handful of malls, so there’s room for everything from indie discoveries to the latest from major directors.

This week’s edition of The Enterprise Guide rounds up the standout films of the edition, with a short synopsis, screening times, and venues for each. You can also check the full screening and events schedule here for showtimes of other films not covered in the list below.

First things first

The festival offers four packages. The 10 and 15 packages cover screenings and panels, while 10 Plus and 15 Plus add red carpet screenings. Package holders can only book same-day and next-day screenings at the box office, one ticket per screening. Prices range from EGP 500 to EGP 750. You can also book and check prices on the festival’s website or at venue box offices.

Where to go. Screenings are split between the Opera House (Main Theater, Small Theater, El Hanager Theater, and El Hanager Cinema), Zawya Cinema and Tahrir Cinema Downtown, Zamalek Cinema, and VOX halls at Mall of Egypt and City Center Almaza.

International Competition

These films compete for the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Pyramid awards. Each screens first at the Opera House’s Main Theater, usually followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers and then again at one of the city’s cinemas.

#1- Strawberries: Two young Moroccan women leave home for southern Spain to work the strawberry harvest, lured by promises of fair pay and a better future for themselves and their families. On the huge farms of Huelva, they find something else: exploitation, harassment, and brutal working conditions, in a story drawn from real testimonies.

Screenings: Today, 6pm, Main Theater, Opera House. Tomorrow, Monday, 16 November, 2:30pm, Zawya Cinema.

#2- Yugo Goes to America: Three Serbian friends born in the 1990s set out from New York to Los Angeles in a Yugo, the car Americans mocked in the ‘80s as the worst ever made. Over 50 days, it breaks down again and again, and they meet Balkan diaspora communities across the US along the way.

Screenings: Monday, 16 November, 6:30pm, Main Theater, Opera House. Tuesday, 17 November, 9pm, Zawya Cinema.

#3- Four Minus Three: Barbara and Heli are professional performers who live with their two children in a playful, laughter-filled alternative life until a tragic accident takes her husband and both children. Alone in the face of unimaginable loss, Barbara navigates her grief in her own unconventional way, one step at a time. Based on a true story and starring Valerie Pachner.

Screenings: Monday, 16 November, 9pm, Main Theater, Opera House. Tuesday, 17 November, 5:30pm, Zamalek Cinema.

Critics’ week

This segment is reserved for the directors’ first and second features, and it often produces the festival’s biggest surprises. Films screen at the Small Theater, then at Tahrir Cinema the following day.

#1- The Blind Girl and an Elephant: In a Bangladeshi village during the pandemic, three girls dream of escaping forced marriage and the superstitions that hem them in. Only the blind girl gets out, and after a series of harsh turns, she finds herself face to face with a mysterious elephant.

Screenings: Monday, 16 November, 3pm, Small Theater, Opera House. Tuesday, 17 November, 4pm, Tahrir Cinema.

#2- The Red Hangar: During a military coup in Chile, Captain Jorge Silva starts his day as usual, training students at the Air Force Academy. When the coup hits, the Academy becomes a detention center, and he finds himself torn between loyalty to the institution and the voice of his conscience.

Screenings: Tuesday, 17 November, 3pm, Small Theater, Opera House. Wednesday, 18 November, 5pm, Tahrir Cinema.

Out of competition

These films aren’t up for awards, but they carry the biggest directing names of the year and tend to sell out the fastest. Book early, or go for the second screening if you miss the first.

#1- The Beloved: A famous Spanish director with a violent past returns to Spain to shoot a new film and offers the lead role to his estranged daughter, a young, little-known actress he hasn’t seen in 13 years. Working with him, she has to confront a man she has never been able to see as a father.

Screenings: Thursday, 19 November, 8:30pm, Zamalek Cinema.

#2- Sheep in the Box: Otone and Kensuke lose their young son and find no way out of their grief. They decide to bring a humanoid robot into their lives, one that looks exactly like their late child, and the film follows how the relationship between them and this new child changes, raising quiet questions about loss, memory, and the limits of technology.

Screenings: Tuesday, 17 November, 6pm, Zamalek Cinema.

#3- Gentle Monster: Pianist Lucy moves with her husband Philip and their son to a country house near Munich, hoping he’ll recover from severe exhaustion. One morning, police raid the house and arrest Philip, turning her life upside down as she begins to discover that her husband isn’t the man she thought she knew.

Screenings: Tomorrow, Monday, 16 November, 8:30pm, Zamalek Cinema.

Revisiting a classic

Rasael El Bahr: The festival presents a restored version of the film about Yehia, a young doctor with a stutter who leaves his profession and Cairo to return to Alexandria for a fresh start, working as a fisherman. There, he meets the mysterious Noura and a cast of other characters whose stories entwine with his in a human, reflective journey about solitude, love, and self-discovery. Starring Asser Yassin and Basma.

Screenings: Today, 9pm, Main Theater, Opera House.