Youssef Chahine: Last News

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egyptian producer, director and mentor Marianne Khoury has been appointed artistic director of the El Gouna Film Festival in a clear sign that the prominent Arab event is aiming to make an ambitious comeback for its sixth edition following a one year hiatus.  The fest, launched in 2017 by Egyptian telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris – whose brother Samih built the El Gouna resort in a swathe of Egypt’s desert near Hurghada, a tourist town 250 miles south of Cairo – was cancelled in 2022 after being held successfully for five years. Khoury will replace Amir Ramses who stepped down as El Gouna’s artistic director at the end of its fifth edition before the event took a one year pause. Ramses subsequently took the reins as artistic director of the Cairo Film Festival, which is Egypt’s oldest and preeminent film event.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentEgyptian producer, director, writer and mentor Marianne Khoury is being honored with the Legion of Honor, France’s highest prize.Khoury, who is the niece of late great Egyptian director Youssef Chahine, is a managing partner in prominent Cairo-based Misr International Films, which Chahine founded. She has directed several documentaries, most recently “Let’s Talk,” which premiered at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam in 2019 and interweaves a treasure trove of archive material with cinematic conversations between four women from different generations in her family.Besides having worked closely with Chahine, who was one of Arab cinema’s leading lights, Khoury –– who holds economic degrees from Cairo and Oxford Universities –– has shepherded some 30 Arab films and docs, many of which are centered around themes of identity, memory, marginalization and womanhood, and launched Zawya, which is Egypt’s first art house cinema circuit.