CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
IN VOLATILE times, launching a new film festival is an enterprise that can only be considered an act of defiant optimism. Thus it is with Eqypt's El Gouna Film Festival, masterminded by the highly respected critic and programmer of Arab cinema, Intishal Al Timimi.
If the celeb count is anything to go by, the inaugural festival was a resounding success — the likes of Forest Whitaker, Dylan McDermott, Michael Madsen, Emmanuelle Beart and Vanessa Williams along with filmmakers from Egypt and the Arab world were in attendance.
RITA DI SANTO takes us through the prize winners, and takes the temperature of a festival that prioritised narratives of exile, state violence and class division
RITA DI SANTO gives us a first look at some extraordinary new films that examine outsiders, migrants, belonging and social abuse


