El Gouna's CineGouna Expands Industry Push: 'We Want to Give Every Filmmaker a Chance'

Egypt's El Gouna Film Festival closed its ninth edition on October 23, 2026, with its industry arm, CineGouna, reporting record application numbers and unveiling a suite of new initiatives designed to close structural gaps facing Arab filmmakers at every stage of their careers.

More than 320 Arab film projects applied to CineGouna Funding this cycle, with over 100 submissions coming from Egypt alone — figures that organisers say reflect both a surge in regional filmmaking activity and growing awareness of the Red Sea resort festival's industry infrastructure.

CineGouna Funding distributed more than $350,000 in cash and in-kind services this year, with 40 individual awards spread across 16 of the 19 projects that participated in the programme. Ahmed Shawky, who heads CineGouna Funding, has overseen a platform that now functions as one of the Arab world's most active co-production and development hubs.

The most closely watched new addition is CineGouna Series, a pilot programme that moves the platform into Arabic-language television for the first time. More than 125 submissions were received for just six available spots, with selected projects receiving workshops, development support, and direct access to producers, studios, distributors, and streaming platforms. Egyptian screenwriter and CineGouna Forum head Mariam Naoum is among the key figures shaping the initiative.

A second new strand, Egyptian Voices, targets homegrown talent specifically, bringing four Egyptian projects into a dedicated programme offering training in pitching, packaging, and co-production. The initiative reflects the festival's dual commitment to building regional credibility while investing in its host country's film ecosystem, which accounted for the single largest national share of this year's funding applications.

The third new programme, Safe Harbour MENA, is the most politically charged of the three. Developed in partnership with the International Film Festival Rotterdam and the International Emerging Film Talent Fund, it is designed to support filmmakers from across the Middle East and North Africa who have been forcibly displaced or face direct threats to their safety. Four filmmakers were brought to El Gouna this edition for training and industry networking under the initiative.

Artistic director Andrew Mohsen and talent development head Hayat Aljowaily, who oversees the Emerge programme, have both been central to shaping CineGouna's expanded mandate. Together, the new strands signal an intent to position the festival not merely as a showcase but as a sustained production and development ecosystem for the Arab world.

The broader industry context underscores the timing. Streaming platforms have accelerated demand for Arabic-language content, while co-production treaties and international festival interest in Middle Eastern cinema have created new routes to market for Arab filmmakers who previously had limited access to financing or distribution outside the region.

Mona Zaki, one of Egypt's most prominent screen actors, received the festival's 2026 Career Achievement Award, providing a high-profile centrepiece to an edition that balanced star power with industry substance. Her recognition served as a reminder of the generational depth in Egyptian cinema that CineGouna's infrastructure is increasingly built to serve.

With the ninth edition now concluded, CineGouna's organisers have signalled that the new programmes launched this year are intended as permanent fixtures rather than one-off pilots. Whether the television strand in particular finds traction with regional streaming platforms will be a key indicator of how successfully the festival can translate its growing application numbers into projects that reach audiences.