Under the slogan "Cinema for Humanity", the first annual El Gouna Film Festival began on Friday (September 22) with an ambitious vision for its inaugural edition. About 500 kilometres south of Cairo, along Egypt's Red Sea coast in the holiday resort city of El Gouna, the festival is the latest addition to the regional circuit that includes the Dubai International Film Festival . Running until tomorrow, El Gouna drew hundreds of regional and international stars.
In an opening statement, the festival's director, Intishal Al-Timimi, said that the festival is "looking to bridge Egyptian and international culture by sharing ideas, interests, and dreams". In the festival's editorial statement, it expressed the organiser's hope "to situate their annual programme as a place of film development and financing, but also a place of critical discussion and creative inspiration, all aimed at connecting Arab cinema with its destined audience around
the world."
While the GFF is the latest addition to a healthy regional film festival circuit, many are not overlooking the fact that it has big business backing from the Orascom umbrella group, including Orascom Development, the property force that built El Gouna.
The choice of Al Timimi as festival director ensures a commendable level of film and festival expertise: he was the Arab cinema programmer of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and its Sanad film fund for Arab cinema. Its collaborators range from younger cinephiles and cultural producers like Zawya's Alya Ayman, to Mostafa Youssef – both of the CineGouna platform, a local project development and co-production lab.
According to Rowan El Shimi, a culture journalist based in Egypt, with the closing of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival in 2014 came a need for a critical platform within the regional Arab film community. "The GFF was strategic in picking up this calendar slot, as it comes right after the international festival circuit, but just before the regional cycle." El Shimi says that the festival offers regional filmmakers an additional platform for competitions, premieres, distribution, and networking. Currently, filmmakers based in the Arab world have only a handful of festivals they can enter their films into outside highly competitive international events.
The festival took place across three main locations and five screens around El Gouna. Over the years, the city of El Gouna has marketed itself as a haven for domestic and international tourism, while simultaneously positioning itself as a residential destination for upper-class Egyptians looking to break away from urban. In both cases, the introduction of an international film festival brings culture, entertainment, and excitement to the burgeoning resort town.
This year's programme, curated by Al Timini, consists of several Middle Eastern premieres of the leading films from this year's international festival circuit, largely from Venice and Toronto, in addition to a selection of world premieres of mostly Arab titles. The week-long programme presented a selection of recent films from around the globe, including three competitive sections (feature narrative competition, feature documentary competition, and short films competition), an official selection out of competition, and a section devoted to special presentations. According to the festival's press review, GFF is giving special attention to films with humanitarian content. Films competing for cash prizes totalling $200,000 included the courtroom drama The Insult by Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri; the Georgian, family drama, Scary Mother, by Ana Urushadze; the family break-up drama, No Bed of Roses, a Bangladeshi-Indian co-production by filmmaker Mostafa Sarwar Farooki; Tamer Ashry's debut film, Photocopy; Egyptian director Amr Salam's highly-anticipated Sheikh Jackson, and more.
A foreign Oscar contender, Sheikh Jackson stars Ahmed El Fishawy and Ahmed Malek in the role of Khaled, a Muslim cleric obsessed with Michael Jackson. The film met with mixed reviews from audiences and critics alike because of a controversial scene where a Jackson-infused dance montage breaks out in a mosque. In any case, the film provides a curious take on societal contradictions, set against the ghostly presence of the King of Pop.
Documentaries were also on show, with world premieres well-worth watching including Soufra, an inspiring refugee story following a female entrepreneur, produced by Susan Sarandon; I Have a Picture by Egypt's Mohamed Zedan, which delves into Egyptian film history, and 17 by Jordan's Widad Shafakoj. The latter is a particularly heartwarming and inspirational film about the trailblazing Jordanian under-17 women's world cup football team. With few exceptions, including several films on the refugee and migration crisis, and artist Ai Weiwei's Human Flow along with the 225-minute epic-documentary, The Wild Frontier, Al Timimi's selection for the festival did not take many risks.
For Sherif Nakhla, a filmmaker based in Cairo, the movie that stood out the most, at four hours long, was The Wild Frontiers. The latest documentary by French filmmakers Nicolas Klotz and Elisabeth Perceval, the film follows the emergence and break-up of the Calais migrants' camp, known as the Jungle, in which almost 7,800 people lived, before the French authorities demolished it in the winter of 2016. "The film was done with extreme precision and artistry," said Nakhla. "It was extremely poetic and managed to find many cinematic approaches and ways of storytelling that I haven't found in conventional documentaries in a long time. It's not for everyone, but it is for those viewers looking for a real experience they won't forget."
Other highlights in the festival's programme were the films that celebrated the musical arts, two of which were The Music of Silence – about the music and life of opera singer Andrea Bocelli – and filmmaker Alain Gomis's Felicity, a vibrant, documentary-style portrayal of a singer in the Democratic Republic of Congo. For those with a particular fondness for 70s-nostalgia and Studio-54 snapshots, there was Sophie Fiennes' fragmented film about larger-than-life disco star Grace Jones.
In fact these frothier, high-energy films made for a suitable companion to a seaside evening by means of both open-air and indoor screening experiences, after which guests could roam around to engage with El Gouna's busy downtown and marina bars and restaurants. While the festival still has some organisational kinks to work out and offers a lighter programme than other film events in Egypt – with only 25 films screened compared to Cairo Film Festival's 200 to 300 films – it did succeed in planting the seeds of a heavyweight in the regional film industry.
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Globalization and its Discontents Revisited
Joseph E. Stiglitz
W. W. Norton & Company
A list of the animal rescue organisations in the UAE
The five new places of worship
Church of South Indian Parish
St Andrew's Church Mussaffah branch
St Andrew's Church Al Ain branch
St John's Baptist Church, Ruwais
Church of the Virgin Mary and St Paul the Apostle, Ruwais
LIGUE 1 FIXTURES
All times UAE ( 4 GMT)
Friday
Nice v Angers (9pm)
Lille v Monaco (10.45pm)
Saturday
Montpellier v Paris Saint-Germain (7pm)
Bordeaux v Guingamp (10pm)
Caen v Amiens (10pm)
Lyon v Dijon (10pm)
Metz v Troyes (10pm)
Sunday
Saint-Etienne v Rennes (5pm)
Strasbourg v Nantes (7pm)
Marseille v Toulouse (11pm)
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Coming soon
Torno Subito by Massimo Bottura
When the W Dubai – The Palm hotel opens at the end of this year, one of the highlights will be Massimo Bottura’s new restaurant, Torno Subito, which promises “to take guests on a journey back to 1960s Italy”. It is the three Michelinstarred chef’s first venture in Dubai and should be every bit as ambitious as you would expect from the man whose restaurant in Italy, Osteria Francescana, was crowned number one in this year’s list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
Akira Back Dubai
Another exciting opening at the W Dubai – The Palm hotel is South Korean chef Akira Back’s new restaurant, which will continue to showcase some of the finest Asian food in the world. Back, whose Seoul restaurant, Dosa, won a Michelin star last year, describes his menu as, “an innovative Japanese cuisine prepared with a Korean accent”.
Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
The highly experimental chef, whose dishes are as much about spectacle as taste, opens his first restaurant in Dubai next year. Housed at The Royal Atlantis Resort & Residences, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal will feature contemporary twists on recipes that date back to the 1300s, including goats’ milk cheesecake. Always remember with a Blumenthal dish: nothing is quite as it seems.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2.0-litre%20four-cyl%20turbo%20%2B%20mild%20hybrid%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E204hp%20at%205%2C800rpm%20%2B23hp%20hybrid%20boost%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E320Nm%20at%201%2C800rpm%20%2B205Nm%20hybrid%20boost%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E9-speed%20auto%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFuel%20consumption%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E7.3L%2F100km%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENovember%2FDecember%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFrom%20Dh205%2C000%20(estimate)%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Juliet, Naked
Dir: Jesse Peretz
Starring: Chris O'Dowd, Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke
Two stars
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Company info
Company name: Entrupy
Co-founders: Vidyuth Srinivasan, co-founder/chief executive, Ashlesh Sharma, co-founder/chief technology officer, Lakshmi Subramanian, co-founder/chief scientist
Based: New York, New York
Sector/About: Entrupy is a hardware-enabled SaaS company whose mission is to protect businesses, borders and consumers from transactions involving counterfeit goods.
Initial investment/Investors: Entrupy secured a $2.6m Series A funding round in 2017. The round was led by Tokyo-based Digital Garage and Daiwa Securities Group's jointly established venture arm, DG Lab Fund I Investment Limited Partnership, along with Zach Coelius.
Total customers: Entrupy’s customers include hundreds of secondary resellers, marketplaces and other retail organisations around the world. They are also testing with shipping companies as well as customs agencies to stop fake items from reaching the market in the first place.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
MATCH INFO
Quarter-finals
Saturday (all times UAE)
England v Australia, 11.15am
New Zealand v Ireland, 2.15pm
Sunday
Wales v France, 11.15am
Japan v South Africa, 2.15pm
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Uefa Nations League: How it works
The Uefa Nations League, introduced last year, has reached its final stage, to be played over five days in northern Portugal. The format of its closing tournament is compact, spread over two semi-finals, with the first, Portugal versus Switzerland in Porto on Wednesday evening, and the second, England against the Netherlands, in Guimaraes, on Thursday.
The winners of each semi will then meet at Porto’s Dragao stadium on Sunday, with the losing semi-finalists contesting a third-place play-off in Guimaraes earlier that day.
Qualifying for the final stage was via League A of the inaugural Nations League, in which the top 12 European countries according to Uefa's co-efficient seeding system were divided into four groups, the teams playing each other twice between September and November. Portugal, who finished above Italy and Poland, successfully bid to host the finals.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
