Gouna Prepares For A Week Of Cinema

The weather is stunningly beautiful here in Gouna.

Don’t know where Gouna is?

Well, it’s a posh Egyptian resort town on the Red Sea, not too far away from Hurghada, and this biatch is preparing to launch her first-ever film festival on Friday. 

Zowee!

Yesterday, I decided to roam, as in take a gander at where the Opening Feature will be screened on Friday at 8PM.

It was a semi hard find, but when I got close to the area, I saw quite a few Egyptian workers lugging heavy stuff around. 

I couldn’t quite make out where the theater was, though, so I asked one of them, and don’t you ever call them native bearers, and he answered ta’ala, which means come, or  follow me, in Arabic. 

Entering through makeshift plywood entrance, I suddenly was in a smallish open theater that was being built from scratch.

(Gouna News Note : We would like to bring to your attention, that the public viewing screen for the opening (22nd of September) and the finale (29th of September) will be moved from the entrance of the New Marina Piazza to Downtown next to Tamr Henna)

In case you plan on going, this theater is by the New Marina. You just have to walk behind the North side buildings facing the water, go through a large open courtyard, pass under some Moorish arches at the far end of this plaza, and you’ll find it. 

I’m pretty sure there’ll be signage showing the various locations for all the GFF venues, but I could not find any directions in the program guide I picked up.

As of yesterday, the GFF program guide is being handed out to the public at local supermarkets.  Impressive list of sponsors, I must say.  

Sheikh Jackson will kick off the festival.  It’s about a religious Egyptian who develops a fixation on MJ.  You know, boyzer MJ; but then, there’s always Beat It to ease that memory. Not sure where this movie is going to go with all that as a concept, but I’m sure it’ll be a fun watch. They seemed to like it up in Canada.

In addition to Sheikh Jackson, GFF has assembled an, let’s see, eclectic lineup of feature films, documentaries, and shorts, most of which, no doubt, resonate in some way with the festival’s opaquely positive theme -- Cinema for Humanity. 

Other films being screened during GFF include Finland’s The Other Side of Hope, directed by Ari Kaurismaki, which has two intersecting story lines: a young Syrian refugee who has lost everything, and a middle aged salesman who buys an unprofitable restaurant on a back street of Helsinki.

A few other films caught my eye. 

Tamer Ashry’s Photocopy is an Egyptian film that is also about an older man who goes a little off the deep end  late in life. The film is a portrait of the owner of a photocopy joint in Abdou Pasha who develops a strange obssession with dinosaurs. I love the idea!

There’s also a short called Lucky, directed by John Carroll Lynch, which appears to star the late Harry Dean Stanton (his name was not listed in the program, but the promo shot looked just like him). 

I saw Harry give a risque talk at the Tribeca Film Festival maybe 10 years ago, and I was saddened to hear of his recent passing.  I’m looking forward to seeing this coda to a great indie actor career, if that’s who’s the star, who made his name with Paris, Texas. Excuse me while I also shed a bitter tear for Sam.

GFF will close with Human Flow, a documentary helmed -- and I’m using that vomit word only because Variety is involved in this shindig -- by artist Ai Wiwei, a no doubt enobling film that offers a visual expression of the migration crisis currenty being experienced around the world -- a topically germaine, er, German film if ever there was one.

Well, I’m not going to list all the program highlights -- you’ll have to read my reviews to know what my faves turned out to be.

These reviews will be published in Gouna News over the coming week or so, so stay tuned for more filmic news from beautiful, unspoiled Gouna, where life is as it should be, and the natural stars shine almost as brightly as in Dahab.

~ aly

To return to Gouna News - Press Here