Invited to speak at the Creative Africa Nexus Weekend 2022 taking place in Abidjan, the Executive Director of the Luxor African Film Festival presented the success story of her festival, which in 10 years, has become a reference in the Continent.
Ezza Elhosseiny, the Executive Director of the Luxor African Film Festival, first indicated that African film is a production realised by an African in an African country, focusing on an African topic. On this Sunday, the third and last day of the Creative Africa Nexus Weekend 2022, she shared the wealth of experience of the lead festival for pan-African film and cinematography events.
In her opinion, the Luxor Film Festival came at the right time, marked by the Arab Spring, and by a constant search by the Egyptian people to connect with the rest of Africa. They had the impression that they were cut off from the rest of Africa, and they wanted to change that state of affairs. They belong to the African continent. The upheavals gave them an opportunity to make the change. She stressed that the time had come to connect with the rest of Africa. The Festival meets this aspiration and gives it a larger audience.
After 11 years in existence, the Luxor Festival has become a platform for pan-African co-production. To date, it has witnessed the screening of over 800 short and feature films; 40 high-level seminars; over 40 grants awarded to local actors within the context of film production, and many personalities honoured, etc.
Furthermore, during the masterclass, Ezza Elhosseiny explained the key to the success of her Festival. It was linked to the democratisation of its management system. She said they rely mainly on young volunteers from the local community, and that it is an essential element to the success of a festival. They constantly develop partnerships in order to support the African film industry. Their values, which are known and shared with their partners are: freedom of creation and expression; diversity and good governance.
In conclusion, Ezza Elhosseiny underscored the importance of establishing an african film association to work towards harmonising the festival programmes in the Continent. She said the initiative would enable different stakeholders to participate actively n several meetings in order to present their productions and establish contacts.