🎬 El Gouna Film Festival 2026: Key CineGouna Sessions Featuring Mona Zaki

The El Gouna Film Festival is preparing for its ninth edition with a CineGouna Forum program that goes well beyond film screenings and red-carpet appearances.

The forum brings filmmakers, actors, industry experts and audiences together for conversations about the creative and professional forces shaping cinema today, from acting and directing to artificial intelligence, archival memory and the future of emerging filmmakers. 🎥✨

The ninth edition will take place from October 15 to 23, 2026, with CineGouna continuing to serve as an important industry and dialogue platform within the festival.

🌟 Mona Zaki on Acting, Choices and Creative Risks

Actress Mona Zaki will take part in one of the key conversations of the program, reflecting on her long acting career and the choices that have shaped her professional journey.

The discussion goes beyond a traditional career retrospective to explore the craft of acting itself, including artistic risks, performance approaches and the challenge of continuing to evolve while navigating fame and professional ambition.

The conversation is particularly significant as Zaki is also set to receive the festival’s Creative Achievement Award during the ninth edition. ❤️🎭

🤖 Angus Finney Examines AI and the Film Industry

The growing role of artificial intelligence in cinema will also receive major attention through a conversation with film industry expert Angus Finney.

The discussion examines AI’s influence across multiple stages of filmmaking, including development, financing, production, marketing and distribution.

Rather than focusing only on excitement or concern surrounding the technology, the session raises deeper questions about authorship, employment, intellectual property and creative control.

One central question is where human decision-making fits within an industry increasingly shaped by automated tools. 🤖🎬

🎥 Yousry Nasrallah on Creative Freedom

Acclaimed Egyptian filmmaker Yousry Nasrallah will also participate in a dedicated conversation exploring his decades-long cinematic journey.

Throughout his career, Nasrallah has moved across different genres, production scales and filmmaking approaches while maintaining a distinctive artistic perspective.

The session will examine creative freedom, artistic collaborations and the ongoing search for the right cinematic form for every story.

For emerging filmmakers, such conversations offer an opportunity to understand how an established director approaches change without abandoning his artistic identity. 🎞️✨

🗂️ Reclaiming the Archive: Who Owns the Image?

Under the Cinema for Humanity theme, CineGouna will host a session titled “Reclaiming the Archive: Who Owns the Image and Who Owns the Narrative?”

The discussion explores the role of visual archives in post-colonial societies and questions the neutrality of historical images created through external perspectives and colonial systems of representation.

Filmmaker Jihan El-Tahri will lead the session, drawing on her experience with archival material and its reinterpretation.

The conversation raises broader questions about cultural ownership, historical memory and the right of communities to reconsider the visual narratives through which their histories have been represented. 📸🌍

🕊️ Mohamed Khan’s Unconventional Male Characters

The festival is also dedicating a series of discussions to the legacy of late Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Khan, marking ten years since his passing.

One session, titled “The Unconventional Hero: Men in Mohamed Khan’s Cinema,” examines his male protagonists and the ways they differed from traditional cinematic heroes.

Khan’s characters were often anxious, vulnerable, conflicted and morally ambiguous, allowing his films to explore the social and economic realities surrounding them.

The discussion offers an opportunity to reconsider how Khan used character development to challenge familiar representations of masculinity. 🎬

👩 Women Beyond Supporting Roles in Mohamed Khan’s Films

Another discussion, “Her Story: Beyond Secondary Female Stories in Mohamed Khan’s Cinema,” focuses on the women who populate his films.

Rather than treating female characters simply as supporting figures in male narratives, the session explores their individual desires, contradictions and emotional journeys.

The discussion also considers how Khan placed female characters closer to the emotional center of his stories, opening a wider conversation about the possibilities of representing women in Egyptian cinema. 👩🎞️

🎞️ Rethinking the Short Film

Short films will have their own space within the CineGouna Forum through a session titled “Thinking About Short Films.”

The discussion challenges the idea that a short film should simply function as a preparation for a feature-length project.

Instead, it examines the short film as a complete artistic form and explores how it can be developed, presented and sustained throughout its life cycle.

The conversation is particularly relevant for young filmmakers working with limited resources while trying to establish distinctive cinematic voices. 🎥✨

🚀 Who Will Make the Next Short Film?

Another session, “Who Makes the Next Short Film?”, focuses on the next generation of filmmakers.

The discussion addresses unequal access to financing, training and festival exposure, while examining what allows a short film to travel internationally and reach new audiences.

By bringing filmmakers, actors and institutions into the same conversation, the session raises broader questions about opportunity and access within the film industry. 🌟🎬

📺 Emerging Talent and the Series Market

CineGouna’s program also expands beyond cinema into the television and series market.

A session examining emerging talent and access to the series industry will explore how new writers and creators can move from developing ideas to entering the professional production ecosystem.

The topic comes at a time when streaming platforms and changing audience habits are reshaping the way television and series projects are developed, financed and distributed. 📺💡

💬 CineGouna Turns Cinema Into an Ongoing Conversation

The variety of sessions reflects CineGouna’s broader role as a platform where cinema is discussed as an art form, an industry, a cultural archive and a space for future innovation.

The program connects established stars and filmmakers with emerging talent while opening conversations about AI, cultural memory, short films, creative freedom and the legacy of influential directors.

CineGouna’s wider activities also include masterclasses, workshops, panels and roundtables designed to encourage dialogue between Arab filmmakers and international industry professionals.

🔥 Looking Beyond the Screen

The ninth edition of El Gouna Film Festival is therefore asking questions that extend beyond individual films.

How does an actor continue to evolve? How does a director protect creative freedom? Who owns historical images? What happens to human creativity in the age of AI? And what does a young filmmaker need to get a first short film seen?

These conversations make CineGouna an important part of the festival experience, turning the event into a place not only to watch cinema, but also to understand how it is created and where it is heading. 🎬✨

💬 Which CineGouna conversation would you most like to attend: Mona Zaki, Yousry Nasrallah, Mohamed Khan’s legacy or the discussion on AI and cinema?