El Gouna Golden Stars Awarded To 'A Poet', 'Always' & 'Agapito'

Simón Mesa Soto’s A Poet was awarded with the Golden Star for Best Narrative Film at this year’s El Gouna Film Festival (October 16-24), while Always, directed by Chen Deming, won the Golden Star for Best Feature Documentary.

Both Golden Star winners have themes related to poetry and coming-of-age. Soto’s film, a Colombia-set drama that premiered at this year’s Cannes Un Certain Regard, follows an aging and erratic poet who attempts to mentor a talented teenager. Always is a feature-length documentary following Gong Youbin, a rural adolescent poet in Hunan province, China.

Always also won the FIPRESCI award and the Netpac Award for Best Asian Documentary. The Netpac Award for Best Asian Narrative when to Shadowbox, a Bengali-language drama about a woman working hard to keep her family together, co-directed by Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi.

Philippines short film Agapito, co-directed by Arvin Belarmino and Kyla Danelle Romero, won the El Gouna Golden Star in the documentary competition. The film, which premiered at Cannes in the shorts competition, follows a young woman working a dangerous job in a bowling alley to support her brother who has cerebral palsy.

Other winners at the festival included Life After Siham, in which director Namir Abdel Messeeh delves into his family history in Egypt and France, which won both the Silver Star for Documentary and Best Arab Documentary. The Silver Star for Narrative Film went to Lucky Lu, about a delivery rider in New York City, directed by Lloyd Lee Choi.

El Gouna’s Cinema for Humanity Audience Award was won ex aequo by Sepideh Farsi’s documentary Put Your Soul On Your Hand And Walk and Egyptian filmmaker Sarah Goher’s Happy Birthday. Farsi’s film follows a Palestinian photojournalist who was killed in an Israeli airstrike the day after the film was selected for Cannes’ Acid section.

Happy Birthday, Goher’s feature debut which played as El Gouna’s opening film, follows an eight-year-old maid who faces some of life’s harsh realities when she organises a birthday party for her upper class friend. (See below for full list of winners).

The festival’s closing ceremony was attended by Naguib Sawiris, founder of El Gouna Film Festival and chairman of Orascom Investment Holding; Samih Sawiris, El Gouna founder and chairman of the festival; Egyptian actress Yousra, who serves on the festival’s International Advisory Board; Amr Mansi, co-founder and CEO of the festival; artistic director Marianne Khoury; and Intishal Al-Tamimi, former festival director and current member of the Higher Advisory Committee.

“This year, we’ve seen record growth,” said Mansi at the closing ceremony. “Last year we received 4,500 accreditation requests; this year that number reached 7,500. Ticket sales rose from 20,000 to 33,000. What was once called an elitist festival has now become a festival for everyone.”

At the end of his speech, Naguib Sawiris presented a Special Tribute Award to Intishal Al-Tamimi in appreciation of his significant contribution to the festival’s legacy.

El Gouna Film Festival also hosted the CineGouna projects market, which gave its top two prizes – Cinegouna Platform Awards both worth $15,000 in cash for a project in development – to The Salt Of The South, from Tunisia’s Rami Jarboui, and The North Wind from Lebanon’s Eliane Raheb.

FEATURE NARRATIVE COMPETITION: 

Golden Star for Best Narrative Film: A Poet (Colombia, Germany, Sweden)
Director: Simón Mesa Soto
Producers: Simón Mesa Soto, Juan Sarmiento G., Manuel Ruiz Montealegre
 
Silver Star for Narrative Film: Lucky Lu (Canada, US)
Director: Lloyd Lee Choi
Producers: Destin Daniel Cretton, Nina Yang Bongiovi, Asher Goldstein, Tony Yang, Ron Najor, Jeyun Munford
 
Bronze Star for Narrative Film: The Settlement (Egypt, France, Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia)
Director: Mohamed Rashad
Producers: Hala Lotfy, Etienne De Ricaud, Kesmat Elsayed
 
Best Arab Narrative Film: Where The Wind Comes From (Tunisia, France, Qatar)
Director: Amel Guellaty
Producers: Asma Chiboub, Karim Aitouna,  Chadi Abo
 
Best Actress: Léa Drucker, Adam's Sake (Belgium, France)
Director: Laura Wandel
Producers: Stéphane Lhoest, Delphine Tomson, Marie-Ange Luciani, Annemie Degryse, Jan De Clercq
 
Best Actor: Ahmed Malek, My Father's Scent (Egypt, Norway, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France)
Director: Mohamed Siam
Producers: Mohamed Siam, Mohamed Hefzy
 
Special Jury Mention: Romeria (Spain, Germany)
Director: Carla Simón
Producers: María Zamora, Olimpia Pont Cháfer, Àngels Masclans

FEATURE DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION:

Golden Star for Best Feature Documentary: Always (US, France, China, Taiwan)
Director: Deming Chen
Producer: Hansen Lin

Silver Star for Documentary: Life After Siham (France, Egypt)
Director: Namir Abdel Messeeh
Producers: Namir Abdel Messeeh, Camille Laemle

Bronze Star for Documentary: Orwell: 2+2=5 (US, France)
Director: Raoul Peck
Producers: Alex Gibney, Raoul Peck, George Chignell, Nick Shumaker

Best Arab Documentary: Life After Siham (France, Egypt)
Director: Namir Abdel Messeeh
Producers: Namir Abdel Messeeh, Camille Laemle

Special Jury Mention: How To Build A Library (Kenya, US)
Directors & Producers: Maia Lekow, Christopher King

SHORT FILMS COMPETITION:

Golden Star for Best Short Film: Agapito (Philippines)
Director: Arvin Belarmino & Kyla Danelle Romero
Producers: Jon Galvez, Carlos Ortiz, Mick Quito

Silver Star Short Film: Loynes (Belgium, France, UK, North Macedonia)
Director: Dorian Jespers
Producers: Clyde Gates, Dorian Jespers, Jules Reinartz

Bronze Star for Short Film: Water Girl (France, Netherlands, Portugal)
Director: Sandra Desmazières
Producers: Jérôme Barthélemy, Daniel Sauvage, Olivier Catherin, Richard Valk, Vanessa Ventura, Nuno Amorim

Best Arab Short Film: The Devil And The Bicycle (France, Lebanon)
Director: Sharon Hakim
Producer: Astrig Chandèze-Avakian

GFF 2025 CINEMA FOR HUMANITY AUDIENCE AWARD:

Put Your Soul On Your Hand And Walk (France, Palestine, Iran)
Director: Sepideh Farsi
Producer: Javad Djavahery

Happy Birthday (Egypt)
Director: Sarah Goher
Producers: Ahmed El Desouky, Ahmed Abbas, Ahmed Badawy, Jamie Foxx, Datari Turner

EL GOUNA GREEN STAR: 

Seeds (US)
Director: Brittany Shyne
Producers: Danielle Varga, Sabrina Schmidt Gordon, Brittany Shyne

BEHIND THE CAMERA AWARDS: Director of Photography Dr. Tarek El Telmissany & Heba Osman for Editing