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El Gouna Film Festival has revealed the first 10 titles for its ninth edition, set to run Oct. 15-23, in the Red Sea resort town of El Gouna, Egypt.
The lineup spans work from established auteurs and first-time feature
directors, drawing from festivals including Cannes, Berlin, Sundance and Karlovy Vary.
Among the titles is Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s “All of a Sudden,” a French-Japanese-German-Belgian co-production starring Virginie Efira as a nursing home director in the Parisian suburbs who introduces a humane care method against resistance, and whose life shifts after meeting a terminally ill Japanese playwright played by Okamoto Tao. The film earned a best actress prize for Efira and Okamoto at Cannes.
Pawel Pawlikowski, the director behind “Ida” and “Cold War,” is in the selection with “Fatherland,” a German-Polish-Italian-French production starring Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler as Erika and Thomas Mann on a road trip through post-war Europe. The film won a shared best director prize at Cannes.
Also in the selection is “American Doctor,” from Poh Si Teng, following three American doctors of different backgrounds who enter Gaza to save lives and find themselves risking everything to expose the truth. Teng previously produced the Oscar-nominated “St. Louis Superman” and served as an Emmy-winning executive producer on “Patrice: The Movie.” The film premiered at Sundance and won the Amnesty International Award and the Peter Wintonick Audience Award at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival.
Joaquín del Paso’s “The Garden We Dreamed” follows a Haitian family that settles in a Mexican forest shaped by illegal logging, finding fragile moments of love and resilience. The film screened at the Berlinale and won the Golden Biznaga for best Ibero-American film, along with Silver Biznaga honors for best director and cinematography at the Málaga International Film Festival.
Mads Mengel’s feature debut “The Guest” centers on new parents whose plans to announce their baby’s name are upended when the father’s estranged mother arrives unannounced. The Danish film took the best director prize and a special jury award at Karlovy Vary.
Myrsini Aristidou’s debut feature “Hold Onto Me” follows an 11-year-old girl who tracks down and slowly bonds with the estranged father she barely knows. The Cyprus-Denmark-Greece co-production won the audience award in the World Cinema Dramatic category at Sundance.
Juliette Binoche stars in Lance Hammer’s “Queen at Sea,” a U.K.-U.S. production about a family pushed to its breaking point as a mother’s advancing dementia raises the question of who decides what is best for her. The film won the Silver Bear Jury Prize at the Berlinale, along with a Silver Bear for best supporting performance shared by Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall.
Markus Schleinzer’s “Rose,” Austria’s submission for best international feature at the 2027 Academy Awards, follows a stranger who talks his way into a war-shattered village as its new farmer while concealing an audacious deception. Sandra Hüller won a Silver Bear for best leading performance for the role at the Berlinale.
“Who Killed Alex Odeh?,” directed by William Lafi Youmans and Jason Osder, revisits the unsolved bombing that killed Palestinian American community leader Alex Odeh four decades ago, as a journalist reopens the cold case and uncovers buried records. The documentary won the Jury Award for Journalistic Excellence and the Producers Award for Nonfiction at Sundance.
Rounding out the initial selection is İlker Çatak’s “Yellow Letters,” a German-French production in which a celebrated artist couple’s marriage is tested after an incident at their play’s premiere draws the attention of the state. The film won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale.
El Gouna artistic director Andrew Mohsen said: “These 10 films speak to each other in unexpected ways, through family, identity, and the quiet acts of courage it takes to hold onto both or to pursue the truth. That’s what El Gouna has always been about, bringing stories from all over the world into the same room, connecting audiences and filmmakers.”
Further additions to the program will be revealed in the coming weeks.
