El Gouna Film Festival 2026: Nine Days of Cinema on Egypt’s Red Sea, 15-23 October
Egypt · Events
Key Facts
—What. The ninth El Gouna Film Festival (GFF), Egypt’s Red Sea cinema meeting, runs under the anniversary banner “9 Years of Stories”.
—When. Thursday 15 to Friday 23 October 2026 — nine days in the purpose-built resort town of El Gouna.
—Where. El Gouna Festival Plaza and venues across the town, about 25 kilometres north of Hurghada and its international airport on the Red Sea coast.
—Why it matters. GFF has become one of the Middle East’s principal film-industry meeting points — a working funding market for Arab and African cinema and a pillar of Egypt’s cultural tourism economy.
—Programme so far. Ten announced titles led by Berlin Golden Bear winner Yellow Letters and Cannes directing laureate Fatherland; the full selection, including the Arab and African strands, is still to be published.
—Access. Accreditation covers industry, press, student, cinephile and El Gouna resident categories; screening tickets and the day-by-day schedule are released through the festival’s official channels.
El Gouna Film Festival returns to Egypt’s Red Sea coast from 15 to 23 October for its ninth edition — nine days in which a purpose-built resort town becomes the Arab world’s most glamorous meeting point for cinema.
A Ninth Edition, Presented This Week
The festival presented its 2026 edition at a press conference in Cairo this week, with Egyptian screen icon Yousra fronting the campaign. The ninth edition carries the motto “9 Years of Stories” and the tagline “From the Red Sea Shores to the International Film Map”.
The event was founded in 2017 by producer Naguib Sawiris with actress-producer Bushra Rozza, event organiser Amr Mansi and producer Kamal Zadeh. Andrew Mohsen, appointed artistic director in April 2026, programmes his first edition this year.
Screenings and galas centre on the Festival Plaza, with red-carpet evenings, open-air screenings and town venues spread between Abu Tig Marina and Downtown. The festival runs nine days, from Thursday 15 to Friday 23 October.
The Programme So Far: Berlin and Cannes Laureates
The first ten titles, announced on 19 August, are led by Yellow Letters, Ilker Catak’s drama that won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in February. Alongside it sits Fatherland, for which Pawel Pawlikowski took the best director prize at Cannes in May, shared with La Bola Negra.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the director of Drive My Car, brings All of a Sudden, whose leads Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto shared the best actress prize at Cannes. Lance Hammer’s Queen at Sea stars Juliette Binoche.
The list continues with Rose by Markus Schleinzer — Austria’s submission for the 2027 Academy Awards, with a Berlinale Silver Bear for Sandra Hüller — and Hold Onto Me by Myrsini Aristidou, a Sundance audience-award winner. Two documentaries, American Doctor by Poh Si Teng and Who Killed Alex Odeh? by William Lafi Youmans and Jason Osder, plus Mads Mengel’s Karlovy Vary-awarded debut The Guest, complete the ten.
For Latin American readers the standout is The Garden We Dreamed by Mexico’s Joaquín del Paso, which won the Golden Biznaga for best Ibero-American film at Málaga after screening in the Berlinale’s Panorama section. Around 80 films across three competitions are expected once the full programme is published; no Egyptian or African title has been announced among the first ten.
Why a Resort Town Festival Matters Beyond the Red Carpet
El Gouna is a fully planned town built by Orascom Development, the group founded by the Sawiris family, roughly 25 kilometres north of Hurghada. A destination festival fills its hotels in the October shoulder season and attaches an international cultural identity to a property development — and the cultural result has outrun that commercial logic.
GFF now sits beside the Cairo International Film Festival and Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea festival in Jeddah as one of the region’s principal industry meeting points. Its top prize, the El Gouna Golden Star for narrative features, carries US$50,000, and a partnership with the Zurich Film Festival announced on 10 August will take a documentary shot off El Gouna’s coast to a Swiss premiere.
The festival is also a marker in Egypt’s wider bet on cultural tourism along the Red Sea. For nine days, European sales agents, Gulf financiers and regional directors share a town of marinas and lagoons — a soft-power stage that few October events in the region can match.
CineGouna: The Industry Engine
Behind the screenings sits CineGouna, the festival’s industry platform. CineGouna Funding runs from 16 to 22 October inside the festival week, supporting Arab and African projects in development and post-production with awards and services worth more than US$300,000 in recent editions.
New for 2026 is CineGouna Series, an initiative developing Arab television and series projects — an acknowledgment that the region’s storytelling has moved decisively into episodic formats. Submissions for this edition closed in June and July, with projects in development due by 30 June and films in post-production by 15 July.
For filmmakers, the platform has become a working funding market rather than a showcase. Many of the Arab and African titles that fill the region’s festival circuit each autumn passed through a CineGouna pitch table first.
The Town Beyond the Screenings
Part of GFF’s draw is that the festival never replaces the town around it. El Gouna runs as a year-round community of marinas, lagoons, golf courses and beaches, with a large international resident population and a dining scene concentrated around Abu Tig Marina and Downtown.
Between screenings, visitors dive and kitesurf on the Red Sea, book spa and wellness sessions or take boats out from the marinas; tuk-tuks and shuttles connect the venues. The festival’s own advice holds: leave breathing room in the schedule rather than chasing nine straight days of screenings.
Planning a Visit: Getting There, Tickets, Timing
El Gouna lies about 25 kilometres north of Hurghada, whose international airport receives direct flights from across Europe and the Gulf; the transfer takes around 30 minutes. October brings daytime highs near 31°C and warm evenings — pack for beach days as much as for screenings.
Accreditation for the ninth edition covers industry professionals, press and media, eligible students, cinephiles and El Gouna residents, with access varying by badge type. Screening tickets and the full schedule are published through the festival’s official channels; book accommodation early, as festival week is the town’s busiest of the autumn.
For the announced titles in detail, see our report on the first ten films of El Gouna 2026, led by the Berlin and Cannes laureates. Readers planning a wider festival autumn can add our Marrakech International Film Festival 2026 guide, which follows in November, and our Egypt coverage for travel and context.
What We Could Not Confirm
The full programme — including the Arab and African competition strands, the opening and closing films and this year’s juries — had not been published at the time of writing. Public ticket prices for individual screenings are released closer to the festival; figures here are limited to what the organisers have confirmed.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where is El Gouna Film Festival 2026?
The ninth edition runs from Thursday 15 to Friday 23 October 2026 in El Gouna, the Red Sea resort town about 25 kilometres north of Hurghada, Egypt.
Which films have been announced so far?
Ten titles so far, led by Berlin Golden Bear winner Yellow Letters by Ilker Catak and Fatherland by Pawel Pawlikowski, a Cannes best director laureate. The full programme, including the Arab and African strands, is still to be published.
How do I attend — tickets or accreditation?
Accreditation covers industry, press, student, cinephile and El Gouna resident categories, with access varying by badge. Public screening tickets and the day-by-day schedule are released through the festival’s official channels closer to October.
What is CineGouna?
CineGouna is the festival’s industry platform, funding and developing Arab and African film projects; CineGouna Funding runs 16 to 22 October, and the new CineGouna Series initiative supports Arab television projects in 2026.
Connected Coverage
The first ten titles of the ninth edition, from the Golden Bear winner to a Mexican Málaga laureate.
El Gouna Film Festival 2026 names its first ten titles
Marrakech International Film Festival 2026: the November guide
Sources: El Gouna Film Festival (official site and press conference); El Gouna town guide; Eventival festival platform; Variety; CairoScene.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
Read More from The Rio Times