Latest in Egypt

Egypt's El Gouna Film Festival (GFF) has announced its return for a sixth edition from October 13 to 20, 2023 after a one-year hiatus. The future of the festival, unfolding in the Egyptian Red Sea Resort of El Gouna, had looked uncertain over the summer following the cancellation of its 2022 edition…

Starzplay has announced its first Arabic-language original series, created in collaboration with Emirati content powerhouse Image Nation Abu Dhabi. The international streaming service of Starz has a big following in the Middle East and North Africa where its regional offering Starzplay Arabia is…

Dubai-based Middle Eastern exhibition giant Vox Cinemas has unveiled its first slate of original Arabic films, which it is producing under a commitment first announced in 2021 to make 25 films out of the region in five years. The company, which operates 600 cinema theatres across the Middle East…

Palestinian director Firas Khoury's debut feature Alam has triumphed at the 44th Cairo International Film Festival, winning its Golden Pyramid Award for Best Film, best actor for Mahmoud Bakri and the Audience Award. The coming-of-age tale, which world premiered in Toronto, explores the reality of…

Egypt, which is home to the Middle East and North Africa's biggest film industry, will not participate in the Best International Film Oscar race this year. According to Egyptian media reports, confirmed by Deadline, the committee of critics and cinema professionals responsible for selecting the…

Netflix is moving into Egyptian drama with an adaptation of Ahmed Khaled Tawfik's Paranormal. The SVOD service has ordered the Middle Eastern series, which will be produced by Mohamed Hefzy and Amr Salama with the latter directing and showrunning. The series is set in the 1960s, the series, packed with mystery and…

Audiences from around the world witnessed history on the Discovery show Expedition Unknown: Egypt Live, as a team of Egyptian archaeologists and explores uncovered a 2,500-year-old mummy of a high priest. The two-hour live event also uncovered antiquities, including a mysterious wax head and two other mummies. "This…

Nearly six years after anti-Islam video Innocence Of Muslims became the center of an international storm, Egypt's top court has ordered authorities to block YouTube in the country for one month. The ruling came on Saturday after a lengthy appeals process over the short film/trailer that ridicules the Prophet Mohammad…

EXCLUSIVE: Cleopatra Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Sheikh Jackson, the Michael Jackson-themed pic that Egypt has selected as its entry into the Oscar Foreign Language Film race. The movie was an official selection at last month’s Toronto Film Festival, and now an early 2018 theatrical release is…

Egyptian state television has stoked a firestorm of criticism domestically and internationally after suspending eight on-air female talent and ordering them to lose weight. The women, including Channel 2 host Khadija Khattab (pictured above) who has asked viewers to judge for themselves whether she deserves her job…

Australian journalist Peter Greste, the Al Jazeera English reporter jailed in Egypt on charges of spreading false news, has been released from prison and deported out of the country, according to state media sources. Greste, a former BBC reporter and Peabody Award winner, along with fellow Al-Jazeera journalists…

Update, Jan 5, 4:18 PM – Human Rights lawyer Amal Clooney has released a statement calling for the immediate release of her client, the Canadian-Egyptian journalist Mohamed Fahmy. Fahmy is one of the three Al-Jazeera English journalists currently in prison in Egypt, having been found guilty of spreading false…