The 11th Cairo Film Connection, integrated into Cairo Industry Days, has selected 15 projects for the competition, including five feature films in post-production and 10 projects in development, including an intensive program of pitch sessions to be held from November 15th to 20th. It will be held as part of the Cairo Film Festival.
The 15 projects, including co-productions, come from 10 countries: 4 in Egypt, 3 in Lebanon, 2 in Iraq, 2 in Palestine, and 1 each in Tunisia, Jordan, Sudan, Algeria, and Yemen.
The awards, which include the major award in the post-production category and the major award in the development category, will be judged by a jury consisting of Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad, Portuguese festival director Susana Santos Rodríguez and Egyptian director Ayten Amin.
Rodrigo Blum, head of Cairo Film Connection, spoke to Variety about this year’s priorities.
This is your second year at the helm of Cairo Film Connection. What were the key lessons from last year’s edition? How was this year’s edition structured?
When I took over Cairo Film Connection last year, my immediate challenge was to ensure the success of the event within a very limited time frame.
There was no time for major reforms, so that edition became an observational exercise in understanding what worked and, more importantly, what needed to be changed.
People wanted real conversations and real interactions, not rehearsed or staged performances.
This year, we took a clear step in that direction. For example, we don’t impose a rehearsed pitch or fixed language. Teams can present in Arabic, French, or English, and we provide technical support if you would like to rehearse. It all depends on what each project requires.
The aim is to create authenticity and space for multiple voices to define regional cinema, rather than forcing it into a single model of a co-production market.
What synergies are there between CFC and the sponsored event Cairo Industry Days and the wider festival?
I consider the Cairo Film Connection to be the most vibrant section of the Cairo Film Festival and the place where the festival truly comes to life. It is the heart of Cairo Industry Days, the space where new blood, new energy and new ideas circulate most intensely. I hope this energy will grow stronger as we continue to insist that cinema is shaped not by institutional models, but by encounters, conversations, and risks.
What are CFC’s main strengths in the Arab film industry in terms of supporting projects and fostering co-productions?
Our main strength lies in building not only economic bridges, but also creative and curatorial bridges. We hope that Cairo Film Connection will remain one of the few spaces where projects from all over the Arab world can meet within an international framework that is firmly rooted in local realities. From last year’s edition, both projects (in post-production and development stages) that won major awards continue to receive great acclaim and we hope to move towards the festival circuit soon.
You Don’t Die Two Times, directed by Ager Usrati, won the company’s main post-production award and later won top prizes at the IDFA Bertha Fund and Amman Industry Days. Elian Raheb’s The North Wind, winner of our major development award, won this year’s CineGouna Platform Award in the post-production category. In addition to winning awards, we have also seen projects find key artistic collaborators through CFC. This can be just as transformative as financial aid.
How does the selection process work?
This is probably the job that requires the most responsibility. It’s not only important to choose an astute and diverse selection committee, but also to ensure that our evaluations are fair to the projects themselves. Co-production platforms often tend to choose projects from established filmmakers and producers, and we can only hope that this comes from a genuine belief in the work rather than a desire for name recognition or safety.
This year, I have been fortunate to work with a committee that I have complete confidence in. The committee engaged deeply with all submissions, based on balanced and nuanced discussions. Our goal was not to select well-known industry names, projects already validated on other platforms, or works tailored to the tastes of European festivals.
The real question was simple. “Is the project necessary?” How clear and consistent is its artistic concept, and does it express an urgent need for immediate support, given the limited financial support offered by Cairo Film Connection? This year, we received nearly 200 applications. I think this is a surprising number considering the overall quality of the entries.
Given that the project spans the entire Middle East and North Africa region, are there cross-cutting trends, or are there primarily more sub-regional trends?
While my academic background suggests that I tend to identify patterns and define categories, I tend to approach selection from the opposite perspective. What interests me most are the differences, singularities, and unique artistic vocabularies that emerge from, against, and beyond each context.
Of course, there are common concerns and unique sensibilities throughout the film, whether North Africa, the Levant, the Gulf, or whatever geopolitical nomenclature one chooses to adopt. But what really stands out is the specific way in which the filmmakers bring these concerns to life.
The richness of Cairo Film Connection lies precisely in this diversity. Each project speaks its own cinematic language, shaped by history, a unique approach to storytelling, and unique production conditions.
Considering the recent turmoil in the region, especially the Gaza conflict, how is this reflected in the selected films, for example the Lebanese film “Days of Wrath” or the Palestinian project “Revolutionaries Never Die”?
Filmmakers very often advance their projects further between the moment of application and public promotion, which is why they do not want to talk about how their projects definitively reflect a particular reality. That said, both projects you mention clearly involve efforts to organize archives, create new contexts of collective history, and rethink the politics of representation (which I believe corresponds to what you call “disturbance” or “conflict” in the region or Gaza).
What stands out is not the direct depiction of the crisis, but rather the critical negotiation with memory, historical awareness, and its cinematic representation. Through their cinematic language, both films challenge the colonial frameworks that have historically shaped the way this region’s history is viewed and told, while at the same time reclaiming and reconsidering their own historical and epistemological order.
When it comes to the particular situation in Gaza, “Ping Pong” is a particularly fascinating project in development, exploring the eerie rhythms of grief and its constant back and forth, primarily through sound.
Does your film selection include genre films (horror, science fiction, crime, comedy, etc.) in addition to social realist documentaries and fiction?
Although genre is not the primary mode among this year’s selected projects, some filmmakers are repurposing genre elements not as a formula but as a tool to experiment with new forms of storytelling.
Could you tell us more about the changes from last year?
Last year, we started implementing live translation into our pitching sessions. It will apply to all requested projects, although not all projects as the complete infrastructure is not yet in place. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Many filmmakers and producers lack confidence in pitching in English, creating a very unfair imbalance within the competitive landscape. That’s why live translation will be fully available for all pitches this year.
When it comes to mentors, I’m still critical of the role, especially if they come from an industry like Hollywood or Europe and assume they know the “standards” to enforce. On the other hand, they often have limited understanding of the region and the particularities of production here. On the other hand, there is a tendency to treat film language as a homogeneous space that ignores geopolitical and cultural particularities. There’s no need for that.
What we need to do is create an environment where participants feel comfortable presenting their projects in their own language and in their own way of expression, even if there are uncertainties and imperfections. The goal is to make the experience more about interaction than performance, and fostering true long-term collaboration rather than transactional encounters.
