El Gouna & Zurich Seal Film Festival Partnership With Red Sea Feature
Filmed off El Gouna's coast, the documentary will premiere in Zurich before making its MENA debut where it all began.
For more than 15 years, Swiss marine biologist Angela Ziltener has been diving alongside wild dolphins in the Red Sea off El Gouna. Now, those encounters are making their way to cinemas in 'DOLPHINS: MY CLOSE ENCOUNTERS', which will hold its world premiere at the 22nd Zurich Film Festival before returning to Egypt for its MENA premiere at the El Gouna Film Festival, taking place from October 15th to 23rd.
Directed by Barny Revill and produced by Silverback Films, with Keith Scholey serving as executive producer, the documentary follows Ziltener's long-term research into the lives of wild dolphins in Egypt's northern Red Sea. Its screening in El Gouna will take place just miles from the waters where the story was filmed.
The film also launches a new strategic partnership between the Zurich Film Festival and the El Gouna Film Festival, with the two events set to collaborate on programming, exchange films and talent, and strengthen connections between filmmakers across Egypt, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
"For the better part of a decade, El Gouna Film Festival has worked tirelessly to give filmmakers in this part of the world a platform for them to collaborate and create films that share stories from the region with the rest of the world," said Andrew Mohsen, Artistic Director of the El Gouna Film Festival.
The collaboration will see both festivals support each other's presence within the international film community while creating new opportunities for filmmakers to reach audiences beyond their home regions. For 'DOLPHINS: MY CLOSE ENCOUNTERS', it also brings the story full circle, returning the documentary to the stretch of Red Sea coastline where Ziltener's years of research first unfolded.
