EXCLUSIVE: Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival has announced the third cohort of emerging talents from across the Arab world selected for its Rising Stars program.
They are Egyptian director Abdallah Dnewar, Saudi Arabian writer-director Razan AlSoghayer, Palestinian filmmaker Omar Rammal, Palestinian Jordanian director-producer Asmahan Bkerat and Syrian DoP, editor and director Rama Abdi.
Launched in 2024, the initiative is part of El Gouna’s CineGouna Emerge program aimed at nurturing the next generation of MENA film professionals. CineGouna Emerge in turn is a strand of El Gouna’s CineGouna industry program alongside the Forum talks lineup, Funding project showcase, Market and new Series focus.
“This year’s Rising Stars are already leaving their mark, each in their own corner of the industry,” said Hayat Aljowaily, Director of CineGouna Emerge & International Engagement, who spearheaded the Rising Stars program.
Cairo-based Dnewar produced the critically acclaimed Rotterdam-selected animated short My Brother, My Brother, and Locarno-selected Khufu, and been a script consultant on several short films. He is currently Head of Specials at Egyptian media company Zest. There, he oversaw the Eish Short Film Competition, a joint initiative between the El Gouna Film Festival and United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
Based between Saudi Arabia and The Netherlands, AlSoghayer’s work explores womanhood, memory, friendship, patriarchy and growing up within a rapidly changing society. Drawing from personal experience and everyday life, she creates intimate, nostalgic stories rooted in Saudi culture and the complexities of change. Her debut short Son Of Badriyah plays in this edition of El Gouna.
West Bank-born Rammal has carving out a unique path between digital storytelling and independent cinema, with his visual style and deeply human storytelling racking up hundreds of millions of views across digital platforms.
He made waves this year with Everyday in Gaza, which won the best short documentary award in the 2026 edition of Italy’s David di Donatello awards. His debut fiction short, Kentucky Gaza makes its MENA premiere at the El Gouna, having premiered in the International Competition at Clermont-Ferrand in France. He is currently developing his first feature film.
Bkerat ,whose work explores themes of displacement, identity, and cultural heritage, is currently on the festival circuit with her debut feature documentary Concrete Land, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival and won the Insights Audience Award at VIFF (Vancouver).
It recently played to sold-out screenings at the BFI London Film Festival and is now on a major festival tour, including Dok Leipzig, IDFA, and Doha. She is currently producing the feature documentaries If These Stones Could Talk and Landwards, and is in early production on her next directorial feature.
Damascus-based Abdi began her filmmaking journey in 2018, working across commercial, journalistic and cinematic productions as a camerawoman and director. In 2022 she directed her first short Fish Dance, and is now working on her first feature-length documentary House Number 7, which she is presenting in the CineGouna Funding project showcase.
Through the program, this year’s Rising Stars will connect with industry leaders and take part in the festival’s main activities, from panel discussions and media engagements to the red carpet. The experience is curated to give each of them the visibility their work has earned.
“What we offer them is not a beginning, but a moment of recognition: a chance to be seen, to be heard, and to find one another,” said Aljowaily. “Our role is simply to bring them into the same room, and into the light, at a moment when their work is ready to be seen.
Amr Mansi, Co-Founder and Executive Director of El Gouna Film Festival added: “We need to ensure that stories from this region are shared with the rest of the world. We strongly believe that our participants will be the dominant voice in telling these stories.”
Andrew Mohsen, Artistic Director of El Gouna Film Festival, emphasized the fact that the participants are fully integrated into the festival program.
“What makes Rising Stars meaningful is that it does not stand apart from the rest of the festival,” he said. “Many of these filmmakers are here with projects they are pitching at CineGouna Funding, or with films that are competing, or have competed, in our official selection. The program recognizes talent we are already invested in, and whose work we have watched grow from one edition to the next.”