The 9th El Gouna Film Festival opens today with 49 features and 19 shorts, launching the MENA region's 2026 fall festival season. The Egyptian Red Sea resort event runs as the first of five major regional festivals across a ten-week window.

The opening gala screens French director Marc Fitoussi's drama All About Corinne, starring Isabelle Huppert as a jobbing actress befriending a screen star.

What changes with Mohsen as artistic director?

This edition marks Andrew Mohsen's first as artistic director, replacing distributor-exhibitor Marianne Khoury, who stepped down earlier this year. Mohsen joined the programming team in 2023 after working at the Cairo Film Festival.

He planned two editions simultaneously: "We were working on two editions, the 9th and 10th, because next year is going to be a very important anniversary for the festival," Mohsen said. "We really asked ourselves what is the identity of El Gouna? What makes El Gouna special?"

The October slot gives El Gouna a programming advantage. Mohsen noted the first three editions ran in September, before moving. "We are the first major international film festival into the region in the last quarter," he said, citing access to titles from San Sebastian, Toronto and Venice and "insights about the films that are also going to campaign for the Oscars."

The fall calendar now runs: Cairo (November 11-20), Doha (Nov 19-27), Marrakech (Nov 20-28) and Carthage (Dec 12-19). Saudi Arabia's Red Sea Film Festival, set for December 3-12, has been shelved this year.

Who competes and who judges?

The 13-film competition includes Egyptian drama Safe Exit by Mohammed Hammad, Palestinian director Rakan Mayasi's Yesterday the Eye Didn't Sleep, Austrian Oscar contender Rose by Markus Schleinzer and Paweł Pawlikowski's Polish entry Fatherland.

Mohsen called Safe Exit, about a Cairo security guard processing his parents' murder in religious and ethnic violence, one of the most "important" Egyptian films in recent years: "It's a very bold film. It's tackling something that we have never seen in this way before in Egyptian cinema."

UK director Joanna Hogg presides over a five-member jury including Egyptian actress Nahed El Sebaie, composer Khaled Hammad (The Yacoubian Building), Iraqi-Kurdish director Shawkat Amin Korki (The Exam) and Turkish director Yeşim Ustaoğlu (What Remains).

Out of Competition screens Cristian Mungiu's Palme d'Or winner Fjord (Romania), Halkwat Mustafa's No Paradise If You Are Killed By A Woman (Iraq) and Ryusuke Hamaguchi's All of a Sudden (Japan). "It's the sixth time across nine editions, that we've secured the MENA premiere of Palme d'Or winner," Mohsen said.

How big is the industry program?

The CineGouna industry platform now runs five strands: Funding, Forum, Market, Emerging and, new this year, Series. The Funding strand hosts 19 projects — 13 in development, six in postproduction — selected from 300 submissions, a 6% success rate.

"Across the years, Cinegouna has grown from only panels and a co-production platform, to add a market as well as the emerging talents program, and this year, for the first time, CineGouna series," said Ahmed Shawky, Head of CineGouna Funding.

Two new initiatives launched this year: Egyptian Voices for local talents and Safe Harbour MENA, in partnership with International Feature Film Rotterdam, supporting four displaced directors from Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Rwanda, Mauritania and Kenya.

The Special Screenings include Dolphins: My Close Encounters, the first shared title in a new partnership with Switzerland's Zurich Film Festival. Forum highlights include a masterclass with guest of honor Mona Zaki, an AI talk by Angus Finney, and a masterclass by director-cinematographer Lukas Ettlin.