This year’s opening selection brings together work by both critically acclaimed and emerging filmmakers from across the world, creating a programme where stories from very different places begin to echo one another.

“That’s what El Gouna has always been about - bringing stories from all over the world into the same room, connecting audiences and filmmakers,” Andrew Mohsen, El Gouna Film Festival’s Art Director, tells CairoScene.

Across the first 10 titles, themes range from family and identity to displacement, political violence and the courage it takes to pursue the truth. Taken together, the films form an early glimpse of a programme built around different perspectives that still manage to intersect.

Here are the first 10 films selected for the ninth edition of El Gouna Film Festival…

All of a Sudden | Dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi

France, Japan, Germany, Belgium

The director of a nursing home in the Parisian suburbs attempts to introduce a humane care technique known as Humanitude, despite resistance from those around her. Her life changes when she meets Mari Morisaki, a terminally ill Japanese playwright.

Awards: Cannes Film Festival — Best Actress (Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto)

American Doctor | Dir. Poh Si Teng

United States, Malaysia, Qatar, Denmark, Palestine

Three American doctors from different backgrounds enter Gaza to save lives, only to find themselves risking everything to expose the truth.

Selected for: Sundance Film Festival

Awards: Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival — Amnesty International Award and Peter Wintonick Audience Award

Fatherland | Dir. Paweł Pawlikowski

Poland, Germany, Italy, France

‘Fatherland’ is an elliptical portrait of identity, family, love and guilt set against the turmoil of post-war Europe. The film stars Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler as Erika and Thomas Mann, who embark on a road trip across Europe.

Awards: Cannes Film Festival — Best Director (shared)

The Garden We Dreamed | Dir. Joaquín del Paso

Mexico

A Haitian family seeking a better future settles in a Mexican forest shaped by illegal logging, finding fragile moments of love and resilience amidst the fractures surrounding them.

Selected for: Berlinale

Awards: Málaga International Film Festival — Golden Biznaga for Best Ibero-American Film; Silver Biznaga for Best Director; Silver Biznaga for Best Cinematography (Gökhan Tiryaki)

The Guest | Dir. Mads Mengel

Denmark

New parents gather to announce their baby’s name, but their celebration is thrown off course when the father’s estranged mother arrives unannounced.

Awards: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival — Best Director and Special Jury Prize

Hold Onto Me | Dir. Myrsini Aristidou

Cyprus, Denmark, Greece

An 11-year-old girl tracks down the estranged father she barely knows and slowly begins to build a fragile, imperfect bond with him.

Awards: Sundance Film Festival — Audience Award, World Cinema Dramatic

Queen at Sea | Dir. Lance Hammer

United Kingdom, United States

When a mother’s advancing dementia raises an impossible question — who gets to decide what is best for her? — a family is pushed past its breaking point. The film stars Juliette Binoche.

Awards: Berlinale — Silver Bear Jury Prize and Silver Bears for Best Supporting Performance (Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall)

Rose | Dir. Markus Schleinzer

Austria, Germany

A stranger talks his way into a war-shattered village as its hard-working, God-fearing new farmer, concealing an audacious deception at the heart of the identity he claims to have.

The film is Austria’s submission for Best International Feature at the 2027 Academy Awards.

Awards: Berlinale — Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance (Sandra Hüller)

Who Killed Alex Odeh? | Dir. William Lafi Youmans and Jason Osder

United States

Four decades after a bombing killed Palestinian American community leader Alex Odeh, a journalist reopens the cold case, uncovering buried records and the forces behind an unsolved political assassination.

Awards: Sundance Film Festival — Jury Award for Journalistic Excellence and Producers Award for Nonfiction

Yellow Letters | Dir. İlker Çatak

Germany, France

A celebrated artist couple’s marriage is pushed to the brink after an incident at the premiere of their play puts them in the crosshairs of the state.

Awards: Berlinale — Golden Bear

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