Best Arab Film Award Jury
A British-Egyptian actor making his mark on the industry after a successful start in Egyptian cinema. His debut role in ”Ramadan Mabrouk Abu El Alamein Hamouda” won him, aged 18, the ‘Best Young Actor’ award at the ‘Egyptian Oscars’.
Returning to England to study criminology- El-Masry ‘pulled a sickie’ during his first year to star in another movie, El-Talatah Yishtaghaloonaha (2010)- he eventually graduated, interned at a law firm, and then went to LAMDA where his International career started. While there he was cast in Jon Stewart’s feature directing debut ”Rosewater”, and a steady stream of increasingly bigger TV and film parts have followed- among them Woody Harrelson’s groundbreaking Lost in London, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
It was his starring role in Ben Sharrock’s refugee drama Limbo that has proved a gamechanger earning El-Masry a best actor BAFTA Scotland and BIFA nomination as well as being selected as the UK’s Screen International Star of Tomorrow and a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit. The film premiered at Toronto Film Festival, followed with screenings at Cannes Film Festival, London Film Festival and Cairo International Film Festival, winning Best Film, FIPRESCI and Outstanding Contribution to Art and two nominations at this year’s BAFTAs.
A British-Lebanese actress based in London who is fluent in English, French and Arabic. She has known success both at home and abroad and has played a variety of roles throughout her career, acting in many different dialects. On the Arabic screens, she is most known for her portrayal on Maggie in Netflix’s first Arabic original “Paranormal” (2020) by Director Amr Salama. She has also starred alongside Hend Sabry in MBC’s “Embratoreyet Meen” (2014), Kosay el Khauli on “Saraya Abdeen” (2014) and Taim Hassan in Shahid’s series “Ana” (2021).
Razane has appeared in French, British and American projects. Among those, three of them were selected at the Cannes Film Festival: “Cruel Summer” with Kanye West (2012), “Une Histoire de Fou” (2014) by director Robert Guediguian and “Carlos” by French director Olivier Assayas (2010) which also won a Golden Globe in 2011.
She is currently working on an Egyptian movie set to be released in 2022, and will also appear as Lyta Hall in DC Comics’ “The Sandman” coming soon on Netflix’s global platform.
Began to write short stories. Algiers was to serve as the main protagonist of each plot. Limply one Saturday morning, an adaptation of one of them, was her first short film awarded at Clermont Ferrand Film Festival. From then on, she devoted herself to writing her first feature film, The Blessed that won three awards at the Venice Film Festival, with the Best Actress award going to Lyna Khoudri, the Brian Award, given to the film which “best champions human rights, democracy, pluralism and freedom of thought”, and the Lina Mangiacapre Award for a film which “changes the image of women in the cinema”. International sales and French distribution rights have been acquired by Bac Films. Sofia Djama is devoting herself for her second feature film.