🎬 El Gouna Film Festival Reveals the First Highlights of Its Ninth Edition

The countdown to the ninth edition of the El Gouna Film Festival has officially begun, with the festival scheduled to take place from October 15 to 23, 2026.

The festival has revealed its first group of 10 selected films, offering audiences an early glimpse into a program built around bold filmmaking, internationally recognized directors and emerging cinematic voices.

✨ The initial lineup is particularly diverse, moving between stories of family and identity, migration and displacement, war and memory, illness, politics and investigative journalism.

Andrew Mohsen, the festival's artistic director, highlighted the strong connections between several of the selected films, particularly their exploration of family and identity.

🏆 Award-Winning International Cinema

The first 10 titles carry significant international recognition, with several having competed at or won awards at some of the world's leading film festivals.

Among them is Fatherland, directed by Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski, known for Ida and Cold War.

The film explores identity, family, love and guilt against the backdrop of post-war Europe and received a shared Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival.

🎞️ Hold Onto Me

The first feature film by Cypriot filmmaker Myrsini Aristidou, Hold Onto Me, follows an 11-year-old girl searching for her estranged father, a man she barely knows.

As the story develops, the two begin building a fragile and imperfect relationship.

❤️ The film received the Audience Award in the World Cinema Dramatic category at the Sundance Film Festival, highlighting its emotional appeal and intimate approach to family relationships.

🌿 The Garden We Dreamed

Mexican filmmaker Joaquín del Paso presents The Garden We Dreamed, a story centered on a Haitian family seeking a better future in a Mexican forest shaped by illegal logging.

The family attempts to create moments of love and resilience within an unstable environment.

🌱 The film received major honors at the Málaga Film Festival, including the Golden Biznaga for Best Ibero-American Film, as well as Silver Biznaga awards for Best Director and Cinematography.

It also participated in the Berlin International Film Festival.

🎭 Yellow Letters

Yellow Letters, directed by İlker Çatak and produced between Germany and France, explores the relationship between art and politics.

The story follows two prominent artists whose marriage approaches collapse after an incident during the premiere of their joint theatrical production places them under political scrutiny.

🔥 The film examines artistic freedom, personal relationships and political pressure, and received the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.

🌹 Rose

A mysterious stranger arrives in a war-ravaged village in Rose, directed by Markus Schleinzer.

He presents himself as a hardworking and religious farmer, while concealing a much more complicated truth about his identity.

🕵️ The film explores deception, identity and the difference between the person someone claims to be and the reality they are hiding.

Sandra Hüller received the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance at the 2026 Berlin International Film Festival.

👶 The Guest

Danish filmmaker Mads Mengel makes his feature debut with The Guest.

The story begins with two new parents gathering to announce their baby's name, only for the situation to change dramatically when the father's estranged mother unexpectedly appears.

⚡ Her arrival opens the door to old family tensions and hidden emotions.

The film received Best Director and the Special Jury Prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

🩺 American Doctor

One of the most socially and politically significant titles in the lineup is American Doctor, directed by Bo See Ting.

The documentary follows three American doctors from different backgrounds who travel to Gaza to save lives, eventually finding themselves risking everything as they attempt to document and reveal what they witness.

❤️ Combining medicine, humanity and documentary filmmaking, the film focuses on the experiences of medical professionals working under extraordinary circumstances.

The film won the Amnesty International Award and the Peter Wintonick Audience Award at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival and also screened at Sundance.

⏳ All of a Sudden

Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi presents All of a Sudden, a French-Japanese-German-Belgian co-production.

The film follows the director of a nursing home on the outskirts of Paris as she attempts to implement the Humanitude approach to elderly care.

Her life changes after she meets Marie Morisaki, a Japanese playwright suffering from a terminal illness.

🎭 The film explores dignity, caregiving, mortality and human connection.

Virginie Efira and Toa Uéno shared the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for their performances.

👑 Queen at Sea

Directed by Lance Hammer and starring Juliette Binoche, Queen at Sea focuses on a family confronting the worsening dementia of a mother.

The illness forces the family to confront a difficult question: who gets to decide what is best for her?

💔 As the situation deteriorates, family relationships are pushed to their limits, transforming the film into an exploration of responsibility, love, illness and personal choice.

The film received the Jury Prize Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, along with supporting performance awards for Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall.

🔎 Who Killed Alex Odeh?

The first lineup concludes with the investigative documentary Who Killed Alex Odeh?, directed by William Lavy Youmans and Jason Ozder.

The film revisits the killing of Palestinian-American community activist Alex Odeh, who was killed in a bombing decades ago.

A journalist reopens the case, examining documents and historical evidence while investigating the forces surrounding an unresolved political assassination.

📰 The documentary combines journalism, history and investigative research and received the Jury Award for Journalistic Excellence and the Producers Award for Nonfiction at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

🌍 El Gouna as a Global Cinematic Meeting Point

The El Gouna Film Festival is not simply a platform for screening films.

🎥 It aims to connect filmmakers from Egypt and the wider Arab region with international cinema professionals, encourage cultural exchange and provide opportunities for collaboration.

The festival also places strong emphasis on discovering emerging cinematic voices and supporting the development of Arab cinema.

Its industry arm, CineGouna, plays an important role in connecting filmmakers with professionals, projects and development opportunities.

🔥 With only the first 10 films announced, the ninth edition is already shaping up as a diverse international program.

More films and festival activities are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

✨ From family and identity to migration, war, illness, politics and the search for justice, the first selection suggests that El Gouna is once again placing stories with strong human and social dimensions at the center of its program.