Cairo film festival is one of the most important festivals in the region and perhaps even the most important. If somebody is interested in cinema in the Arab world, the Cairo International Film Festival is a prominent place to stop and look. There’s also an excellent chance to discover some new films at the festival. In the last two years, about 20% of our program has been world international premieres. The festival also began to attract sales agents and buyers because of its new industry platform called Cairo Industry Days. Very few festivals managed to hold a physical edition last year, and Cairo was one of them. The 43rd edition of the Cairo International Film Festival will be held from Dec 1st to Dec 10th, 2021. In the following interview with Mohamed Hefzy, the festival president, we discussed the event and its programming.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): How do you define the Cairo International Film Festival? What do you see as the specificity of the festival in the world of the festival market?
Mohamed Hefzy (MH): It’s obviously one of the important festivals in the region and perhaps even the most important. If somebody is interested in cinema in the Arab world then I think the Cairo International Film Festival is an obvious place to stop and look, especially because of its long history with 43 editions.
So it’s definitely an international festival and it’s an A-list festival and the idea is to host a lot of premieres so there’s also a chance to discover some new films. In the last two years, about 20% of our program has been world international premieres so international journalists, buyers, and others have a chance to discover some new works. However, it’s only recently that we began to really attract sales agents and buyers simply because our new industry platform, which is called Cairo Industry Days, began in 2018.
(UM): You’re very active person in the film industry, you have a brilliant CV, and you’re considered to be one of the most successful and productive people working right now. How do you balance working as the festival director and as a producer?
(MH): I try to see those roles as complementary to each other. Some of the work that I’ve done as a producer has helped me a lot to bring some talents, producers, sales agents, and festival directors to the Cairo International Film Festival, and also vice versa. I think my work with Cairo International Film Festival has allowed me to meet a large number of people from the international film community and that may also open doors for me as a producer with some of the projects that I’m developing or projects that come from there. Although we’re talking about a very large number of people in the film community around the world, sometimes it feels quite small because you see a lot of the same people at the same festivals when you go to the markets and go to festivals like Cannes, Berlin, Sundance, Toronto, and Venice.
So you always run into the same people and, of course, you meet new people at the same time. But I think that when I’m there, I feel like I’m representing myself as a producer and I’m also representing the Cairo International Film Festival as its president. And somehow, it hasn’t really been that difficult to juggle both, although it’s put a lot of strain on my personal time. Also, sometimes I have to prevent our programmers from selecting that I’ve produced in order to avoid any conflict of interest. I don’t want anyone saying that the festival president has influenced things to benefit his own films so I try to avoid that just for comfort and peace of mind.
(UM): The pandemic didn’t disrupt the festival last year and you had a physical event but there were two times in the past when the Cairo International Film Festival didn’t take place because of political instability. What is the role of politics in the festival?
(MH): Well, there’s really no role for politics in the festival except that sometimes we show films which are obviously political because that’s what film festivals do. You always have some film that is going to be a little bit political but politics do not interfere with the festival. I mean, it’s run independently with the support of the Ministry of Culture and everybody knows that we have censorship in Egypt. There is censorship across the Arab world in general, except for maybe Tunisia, so we have to live with that fact. However, when we talk about censorship for a commercial release in commercial cinemas, it’s different than when you talk about censorship for film festivals, where the ceiling is, I think, much higher. So for example, you can have scenes with things like nudity at a film festival, where you probably wouldn’t be able to have that in a commercial release in normal theaters.
(UM): This is your third year as the festival director. Considering your past years of experience, what areas of the festival are you hoping to improve?
(MH): Actually, we are working on many things at the same time. What we tried to focus on in the past years was mainly starting the industry side and the business side of the festival. So we’re trying to grow that but at the same time we’re trying to improve our programming, make it more diverse, and attract high-profile, newer films, more world premieres, and better programming overall. We’re also trying to connect more with the international film community, international journalists, and we’ve introduced monetary prizes for some of our competitions.
We’ve managed to increase the quality of the screenings in terms of things like sound and the picture but we’ve also managed to increase our audience tremendously. We’re going to work on improving that even more in the coming years because last year, despite operating at only 50% capacity, we sold almost thirty thousand tickets. That’s much higher than three or four years ago so it’s going in the right direction and we just have to keep working on the things that we started in the past year or two.
(UM): What do you consider to be a good film? What are the main criteria for film selection under your guidance?
(MH): Well, first of all, we run our programming as a team. Last year, we didn’t have an artistic director but we had something like an artistic team or an artistic bureau. We had Andrew Mohsen who was kind of coordinating the programming efforts but, at the same time, we also used to watch films together or if we watched them independently then we would always discuss them as a team and make decisions as a team, especially for the main sections in competitions. I mean, a good film is, for us, just a good film. It’s a film that we feel is original, with a lot of quality, artistry, and craft, and that has a voice. We like to see things from directors who have a unique voice or a unique vision. We don’t have quotas so we don’t necessarily say we need to have a certain number of films from Egypt or from other countries but we do try to be geographically diverse and we signed the 50-50 by 20-20 pledge to make sure that we have a certain amount of female filmmakers represented as well as female programmers on our selection committees. So we care about representation and we’ve managed to strike a good balance in the past year or so. Still, at the end of the day, a good film is just something that you know when you see it. I mean, there’s no formula for it.
(UM): Regarding film selection, what is the working relationship like between the sales agents, international distributors, and programmers at your festival? How closely do you work with the sales agents or global distributors during the selection process?
(MH): We do work with them very closely because we have to talk to them early about their lineups and then we request films. If they don’t have a local distributor then we have to request them from the sales agents. We have to work very closely with sales agents in order to be aware of their early on. We meet in several markets, such as in Berlin and Cannes, so it’s very vital to our programming to have these good relationships with sales agents from all over the world, especially European agents.
(UM): There is a concern that big festivals only care about established filmmakers or films with international representatives. How do you support young filmmakers who don’t have sales agents?
(MH): Well, we’ve received about twelve hundred submissions for each of the past three years. We filter and watch all of the submissions and we do actually select films that are submitted without sales agents being involved, such as from independent producers and filmmakers who submit their films. It’s not often that we find a film this way that we feel fits with our programming but sometimes we do. Sometimes, these films are world premieres or international premieres and we’re happy to discover these filmmakers.
(UM): What is your working relationship like with the press agent? Do you have a specific plan to support the press at your festival?
(MH): We have a press attaché and we invite members of the international press from certain publications as well as sometimes independent journalists and Arab journalists. Obviously, we have a high number of Egyptian journalists that cover the festival. We also work with DDA in London for talent outreach and for some other PR-related activities. So we are open to the world, we care very much about communicating with the press, and we try to make our press releases available in both languages to be distributed to international journalists at the same time as to the Egyptian journalists. We also encourage members of the press to try coming to the festival if it’s not too difficult, expensive, or dangerous.
(UM): You mentioned a little bit about this but some film festival directors believe that selection should be based only on a film’s artistic merits while some others favour specific affirmative action policies to increase representation of minority or female directors, which sometimes sparks debate. Have you any such debate at your festival?
(MH): We do but we put artistic merit above anything else.
(UM): You were among the few film festivals that managed to hold a physical event last year. How was that experience? How did the general public and press react to the idea of having a physical event during the pandemic?
(MH): To be honest, it was difficult. I mean, I really hope that, come December 1, which is when we should start to open this year, there will be less COVID-19 in the world and also in Egypt. It was really difficult last year, such as managing crowds, especially with sold-out theaters and sold-out venues for panels, master classes, workshops, seminars, and that kind of thing. It was not easy to satisfy the demand because there were so many sold-out screenings and I wish that we had more screenings to be able to accommodate that demand. It was not easy and we were nervous. We were worried that there would be cases of the virus and that we would have problems, especially with managing the opening and closing ceremonies because there’s huge demand for invitations to those. We had the support of the Ministry of Health and I think that we managed it quite well in the end.
(UM): How do you plan to support filmmaking activities in the face of the pandemic? Are you currently working on any new initiatives in this regard?
(MH): We have increased funding for Cairo Film Connection, which is our co-production platform. Last year was the seventh time that we held Cairo Film Connection and it was by far the biggest in terms of awards and value, with an unprecedented $250,000 in prize money and services given out. That was unprecedented in the history of the festival. We want to continue doing that again this year and we want to see it reach those levels of support again. Last year, we also started an initiative to showcase some of the short films on a local streaming platform because COVID-19 prevented some people from coming to the cinema with our reduced capacity. We may do that again this year with a bigger selection of films
(UM): What do you think about online festivals? Do you consider that to be an option for the Cairo International Film Festival at any point?
(MH): We never did, actually. I’m not against online film festivals. I think some have been very successful. I just feel like what would suit us best is to have a physical edition.
(UM): You mentioned a little bit about the amazing Cairo Film Connection. Can you say more about the program?
(MH): Well, the quality of the selection for the Connection has been really high for the past few years. Some of the films that went on to get made really have been doing really well at other festivals around the world. It’s about showing diversity and strength in the Arab film industry as well as being able to increase the level of awards, grants, and other forms of support that are being given to these projects. I think we need that at a time when there is very little funding available for our filmmakers. We need more festivals like Cairo and in Egypt there is also the El Gouna Film Festival, which has been very generous with grants in their co-production market. We need more of that and I think that’s something we’re going to work on again this year.
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.