El Gouna Film Festival: Fouzi Bensaïdi Receives Creative Achievement Award

Moroccan director and screenwriter Fouzi Bensaïdi received the Creative Achievement Award on Friday evening at the closing ceremony of the ninth El Gouna Film Festival, held in the Egyptian town of El Gouna from October 15 to 23.

Egyptian filmmaker Yousry Nasrallah handed the prize to Bensaïdi, whose career spans directing, screenwriting and acting.

Tribute to Egypt

Accepting the award, Bensaïdi said he was proud of the honour. He spoke of the special place Egypt holds for him, pointing to the influence Egyptian literature and art had on his cultural and artistic formation.

He also recited lines from “You Will Be Forgotten as If You Never Were”, a poem by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, as a nod to the relationship between memory and legacy.

A career beyond set formulas

The award recognises a body of work marked by varied narrative and visual approaches, close attention to human characters and how they change, and an effort to explore cinematic expression outside ready-made moulds.

Bensaïdi is one of the leading names in contemporary Moroccan cinema. His films shown at international festivals include “A Thousand Months”, “What a Wonderful World”, “Death for Sale”, “Volubilis” and “The Empty Quarter”.

His work focuses on everyday detail and social and human change, following characters caught in complex situations where social pressures collide with personal ambitions. He pays particular attention to scene construction, rhythm and performance, and to the spaces his characters move through and what they convey socially and culturally.

Theatre roots

Speaking at a panel discussion during the festival, the director said his background in theatre shaped his artistic vision, especially his understanding of acting and character building. Moving into film, he explained, gave him different expressive tools, in which image, sound and rhythm interweave with storytelling.

The ninth edition of the festival screened a selection of Arab and international films and hosted talks and professional meetings on creation, production and distribution, as well as on ways to strengthen ties between filmmakers in the region and their international counterparts.