10 films to follow at El Gona, from Cannes and Berlin to emerging Arab filmmakers

The 9th El Gona Egypt Film Festival brings together a powerful showcase of Arab cinema in the Red Sea, with a mix of emerging voices from the region, established filmmakers and award-winning titles from Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Sundance and Shanghai. Throughout the narrative, documentary and short film competitions, this year's selections are stories of love, memory [...]

In the narrative, documentary and short film competitions, this year's selection showcases stories of love, memory and family, as well as war and displacement, while offering glimpses of communities navigating political, social and economic upheaval. Several titles also highlight El Gouna's growing role in nurturing projects before they reach the big screen, with filmmakers and projects previously supported through CineGouna, the festival's industrial arm, returning with completed works. Related Stories Variety's 'Pixels and Pencils' Animation Panel with 'Wildwood' Directors, 'Ray Gunn' and More 'New Stanford Prison Experiment' at SCAD Savannah Film Festival Return of Netflix Pre-release Tense Trailer

Here are 10 titles to watch at this year's festival. Popular in Variety

"Safe Exit" (2026) (Mohammed Hamad, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Qatar, Germany. Produced by Khloud Saad, Dora Bouchocha, Dina Farouq, Ebrahim Al-Batout and May Oudeh)

A decade after his feature debut, Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Hamad presents his second film, Safe Exit, which premiered at this year's Berlinale. Centered in downtown Cairo is Saman, a Coptic Christian security guard haunted by his father's murder by extremists, whose life changes when he meets Fatima, a poor sex worker who faces her own struggles. Hammad explores faith, isolation and some of the contradictions of contemporary Egyptian society. His first film, "Withered Green", premiered at El Gona in 2017.

Only Rebels Win (2026) (Daniel Arbid, France, Lebanon, Qatar. Produced by Omar Alkadi, Nadia Turinsev and Georges Shuker)

Suzanne (Hayam Abbas), a Palestinian-Lebanese woman who is widowed and now has grown children, finds herself free to put herself first. When she falls in love with Othman, a young undocumented Sudanese immigrant in Beirut, their relationship puts this newfound independence to the test. When the war made filming in Lebanon impossible, director Daniel Arbid asked a local crew to film locations in Beirut without actors, then used the footage as back-to-back shots while filming in a Paris studio. "Only Rebels Win" opened the Panorama section at this year's Berlinale.

"3 Weeks Later" (2026) (Miroslav Terzic, Serbia, Bulgaria, Italy, Croatia, Luxembourg. Produced by Snjana van Hovelingen and Branislav Trifunovic)

Miroslav Terzic's 3 Weeks Later, fresh from winning the European Cinemas Label in Karlovy Vary, follows a group of students trapped in a mountain hotel three weeks after their classmate committed suicide. Questions soon emerge about the bullying that occurred before her death, and how many of them knew what was going on. Instead of focusing solely on those responsible, Terzic expands the circle to include classmates who were silent spectators and never intervened.

"Halima" (2026) (Yasin El-Idrisi, Morocco. Produced by Yassin El-Idrisi)

Halimah, winner of Best Director and Best Actress (Khadijah Amari) at the Shanghai International Film Festival, is the first feature film of Moroccan filmmaker Yassin El Idrisi. Moving between Halima's present-day life on the Moroccan coast and her past in the Rif mountains, the film shows how the widow, threatened with displacement from her land and struggling to make ends meet, became involved in the illegal hashish trade. Drawing on El-Idrisi's years of photography and her encounters with marginalized communities across Morocco, Halimah looks at the hidden economy of cannabis in the region while resisting easy judgments about the people whose livelihoods depend on it.

"Citizen of Osama" (2026) (Ahmed Hassouna, Palestine, France. Produced by Laura Nikolov and Rashid Masharawi. Co-producer with Ahmed Hassouna)

In northern Gaza, photojournalist Osama al-Ashi is documenting a war while trying to survive it. Ahmed Hassouna's documentary, premiering in Venice, follows Elashi as his work to record the devastation around him collides with his responsibility to keep his wife and newborn son out of harm's way. This film has been selected as the official Palestinian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 2027 Academy Awards.

"The Return of Captain Kabunga" (2026) (Amir Al-Shanawi, Egypt. Produced by Ahmed Abdelsalam)

In Ismailia, a city along Egypt's Suez Canal, veteran street wrestler Ashraf "Kabunga" Mahros is trying to revive the WWE-inspired wrestling shows he once performed with a group of local amateurs. Amir al-Shanawi follows this effort alongside Kabunga's more immediate struggle to make ends meet and support his family as Egypt grapples with an economic crisis. The Return of Captain Kabunga premiered in El Gouna after participating in the 2025 CineGouna Funding where the project received several post-production cash and non-cash awards.

Whispers in May (2026) (Dongnan Chen, Hong Kong, Netherlands, South Korea, Sweden. Produced by Jia Zhao and Kay Xu. Heejung Oh and Malin Hüber)

Fourteen-year-old Qihu gets her first period and sets out with her friends to find a traditional skirt for her coming-of-age ceremony in the remote mountains of Liangshan, China. While his parents don't work in the city, his journey shows how young people's lives are changing, even as long-standing customs remain entrenched. "Whispers in May" by Dongnan Chen has won the DOX:AWARD at this year's CPH:DOX, combining documentary with fictional and fairy-tale elements.

"The Nuisance Bear" (2026) (Gabriella Osio Vanden and Jack Wiseman, Canada, US, UK, produced by Michael Code, Teddy Leifer and Will N. Miller)

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Documentary Competition at Sundance, "The Bear" follows polar bears on their centuries-old migration through Manitoba, Canada, where they increasingly encounter tourists, wildlife officers and hunters. Directors Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Wiseman turn their 2021 Oscar shortlist of the same name into a feature that flips the conventional view of migration from nature's perspective. Humans and the city itself become intruders.

My Village Blamed Women for the End of Humanity (Al-Khabith) (2026) (Jad Shaheen, Egypt, UK. Produced by Yara Gobran)

When a mysterious epidemic begins to infect women in a remote fishing village, fear quickly turns the community against them. Director Judd Shaheen explains, "Basically, the film is about a man who tries to protect three women from death, but realizes that protection itself can be part of the violence inflicted on them." This contradiction fuels a larger question that Shahin poses to the audience and perhaps to himself: “If the end is inevitable, what gives us the right to decide when it begins? And when will our fear of it make us build it with our own hands?” The film, which will have its world premiere at El Gona, follows Ken Lassinoff's Shaheen's The Brook's Call.

"Perishan" (Irtibak) (2026) (Maryam Abdel-Gaber, Egypt. Produced by Tamer Ashri, Zeina Issa, Aliya El-Shahbour and Maryam Abdel-Gaber)

A young supermarket cashier is given a key by an ordinary old man who asks him to check his apartment in case it goes missing. When the woman stops coming to the store, the cashier decides to take advantage of it, letting her into the private life of someone she barely knew. "Narahti" marks Maryam Abdulgabar's first appearance in narrative filmmaking and stars Rakin Saad and Menha Al-Batrawi. The film has its world premiere in El Gona.