The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

With the Gouna Film Festival’s commitment to showcasing a diverse selection of films, documentaries, and short films, the event serves as a platform for filmmakers to present their work to a global audience and promote cultural exchange. The festival also features a range of international films screened and entered into competitive and non-competitive competitions. Here are some international films at this year’s GFF you should not miss.

 

May December (United States)

Director Todd Hayes delivers an emotional and melodramatic film starring Nathalie Portman (also a producer) about an actress, Elizabeth Berry, who travels to Savannah, Georgia, to visit Gracie Atherton-Yoo (played by Julianne Moore) as she prepares to play her in a movie. The story of Gracie caused a scandal around the world because of her May to December affair with a boy 23 years younger named Joe Yoo (played by Charles Melton). Her affair sent her to jail, where she gave birth to twins and later married Joe after her release. The film focuses on Berry as she tries to assimilate the conditions Gracie lived under, trying to understand the woman behind the scandal and why it all happened. The story is loosely based on the Mary Kay Letourneau scandal.

 

Anatomy of a Fall (France)

Anatomie d’une Chute (Anatomy of a Fall) is a true achievement for French director Justine Triet, who has surpassed all her past works as this year’s Palme d’Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival. The film tells the story of Sandra Hüller, a successful German novelist, as she is interviewed in her secluded French mountain chalet when her son comes home to find his father, Hüller’s husband, lying in a pool of blood. The murder trial turns into a courtroom drama while Triet’s brilliance makes you question the innocence of Sandra. Focusing on the mystery of the husband’s death, the film also exposes the delicate nature of marital relationships.

 

If Only I Could Hibernate (Mongolia, France, Switzerland)

The feature debut of director Zoljargal Purevdash competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival this year. The Mongolian film tells the story of the poor Ulzii, a teenage boy whose academic achievements don’t interest his mother, as she leaves him and his siblings behind in the city to fend for themselves during the harsh winter while she takes a job opportunity in the countryside. Without romanticising poverty, Purevdash invites you to think about solutions for the protagonist rather than simply lament his condition. The film is said to be reminiscent of Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting.

 

Lost Country (Serbia, France, Luxembourg, Croatia)

Directed by Vladimir Perišić, Lost Country premiered at Cannes this year as part of the Critics’ Week sidebar programme. The film’s young star, Jovan Ginic, won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award at the festival. It relays the actual events of 1996 and 1997 in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, where peaceful student demonstrations against President Slobodan Milošević started as a response to the electoral fraud by Milošević’s Socialist Party of Serbia. The resulting bloody Balkan Wars and the trial for the fraudulent president in 2002 resulted in the dissolution of the state of Yugoslavia. The film focuses on 15-year-old Stefan, who is facing a personal revolution inside his own home against his mother (played by Jasna Djuričić), who is the spokesperson and accomplice of the corrupted government. Stefan must confront his mother while his friends and classmates rebel against everything she stands for.

 

Dreaming & Dying (Singapore, Indonesia)

Directed by Nelson Yeo, this classic class reunion is set in a seaside hotel. It takes a downward spiral when a possible romantic triangle emerges between three former classmates, two of whom are married. The film makes abrupt changes all throughout, telling the story from different angles in a context that defies reality. Just when the audience starts to follow the plot, the storyline takes another turn, which the director describes as an opportunity to explore “how we choose to remember things in our own ways, and as time passes, those fantasies sometimes become realities; the idea that certain things, however meaningless, can take on their own meaning over time”.