International Competition’s Jury – Cairo International Film Festival

International Competition's Jury

Renowned Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan is considered one of the most significant contemporary directors in world cinema. His films are celebrated for their profound human and philosophical depth and their exquisite visual language, marking milestones in global cinema through their existential questions and distinctive aesthetic vision.

Ceylan has received multiple awards at the Cannes Film Festival over the years. His film Distant (2003) won both the Grand Prix and the Best Actor Award. He received the Best Director Award for Three Monkeys (2008), and in 2011 his film Once Upon a Time in Anatolia earned him the Grand Prix once again. His career reached its peak in 2014 when he won the Palme d’Or for his epic Winter Sleep. Most recently, his film About Dry Grasses earned the Best Actress Award at Cannes in 2023, reaffirming his enduring presence and influence in world cinema

His artistic solo exhibitions were featured all over the world. He is considered one of the most significant contemporary directors in world cinema. His films are celebrated for their profound human and philosophical depth and their exquisite visual language, marking milestones in global cinema through their existential questions and distinctive aesthetic vision. Nuri Bilge Ceylan lives and works in Istanbul.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan

President of the Jury

Basma

Basma BIO

Basma is an Egyptian actress who began her career as a television presenter. She made her film debut with director Yousry Nasrallah in The City (2000) and also appeared in The Nazer the same year, directed by Sherif Arafa. Basma is known for her diverse roles across cinema and television and has received numerous awards.

A graduate of Cairo University’s Faculty of Arts, English Department, Basma was raised in a family deeply engaged in public affairs—a background that shaped her socially aware artistic choices. Her filmography reflects this engagement through roles in The Ostrich and the Peacock, The Night Baghdad Fell, One of the People, and Sheikh Jackson.

She has worked with leading figures of Egyptian cinema, including Omar Sharif, Adel Imam, and Yousra, and with directors such as Daoud Abdel Sayed , Yousry Nasrallah, Sherif Arafa, and Ahmad Abdalla. Basma continues to balance complex, dramatic characters with commercially successful works, earning critical acclaim throughout her career.

Bogdan Mureșanu

Bogdan Mureșanu BIO

R literature and advertising to cinema as both director and screenwriter. His debut feature, The New Year That Never Came, was nominated for the European Discovery 2024 – Prix FIPRESCI and won 23 international awards, including Best Film and the FIPRESCI Award at Venice, the Golden Pyramid at Cairo, the Silver Peacock for Best Direction at Goa, and the Grand Prize and FIPRESCI Award at the Luxembourg City Festival. It also earned 10 Gopo Awards.

He debuted as a screenwriter with The Human Torch (2008) and later wrote Opinci (2019) and Where Is Sofia? (2012), winning awards for each. His acclaimed short The Christmas Present (2018) won the 2019 European Film Academy Award and over 70 international prizes, and was shortlisted for Oscar nominations. Mureșanu recently completed The Magician, and is developing three new Romanian film projects.

Guan Hu

Guan Hu BIO

Guan Hu, a graduate of the prestigious Beijing Film Academy, is one of China’s most acclaimed and influential directors, celebrated by Chinese and foreign movie critics for his sharp realism, humanistic vision, and bold camera language. A pioneer of the sixth-generation filmmakers, his works explore ordinary lives amid social change with striking visual and emotional depth that examines the broader world.

His 2009 black comedy Cow won the Golden Horse Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and screened in Venice’s Horizons section. Design of Death (2012) and The Chef, the Actor, the Scoundrel (2013) showcased his experimentation with black comedy and genre fusion. Mr. Six (2015) achieved local and international success with a $137 million box office and closed the Venice Film Festival. He co-directed My People, My Country (2019), a $443 million box-office hit, and the war epic The Eight Hundred (2020), the world’s top-grossing film that year.

His recent films include Black Dog (2024), winner of Cannes’ Un Certain Regard Award, A Man and a Woman (2024), and Dongji Rescue (2025).

Nadine Khan

Nadine Khan BIO

Nadine Khan is a filmmaker based in Cairo. She earned her BA in film directing from the Egyptian Higher Film Institute in 2001. Since then, she has directed several feature and short films, commercials, TV series and music videos.

Khan’s sophomore feature Abu Saddam (2021) premiered at the 43rd edition of the Cairo International Film Festival, winning the prize for best actor. Her debut feature film Chaos, Disorder (2012) won several awards, including the Jury Prize at the 2012 Dubai International Film Festival, the Best Film Award at the Oran Arab Film Festival, and the Development Award from the Locarno Film Festival, one of the world’s most prestigious film events.

Khan began her directing career with short films, most notably One in a Million (2006) which was screened at international festivals and won multiple awards. She has also directed several documentaries, including The Stranger, Al-Eid Farha, and Om Ali. She also directed the critically acclaimed TV series Seventh Neighbor (2017), Who Said? (2022), Mandatory Path (2024).

Simona Paggi

Simona Paggi BIO

Simona Paggi, originally from Milan, graduated in 1982 from the Experimental Institute of Visual Communications, specializing in graphics and photography. She later attended the Albedo Film School, earning a diploma in film editing, and moved to Rome in 1984, where she began her career as an editing assistant and sound and music editor.

In 1989, she made her debut as a film editor with Open Doors (nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film), directed by Gianni Amelio, with whom she became a long-term collaborator. In 1993, she edited Italy’s first digital film, It All Started by Chance by Umberto Marino, pioneering a new phase in Italian post-production.

Paggi received an Oscar nomination for Best Editing for Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful and won the David di Donatello Award for Best Editing for Gianni Amelio’s The Stolen Children. She has also collaborated with prominent directors including Emanuele Crialese and John Turturro.

Leyla Bouzid

Leyla Bouzid BIO

Leyla Bouzid is a Tunisian director. She was born in 1984 in Tunis, where she grew up. In 2003, she left for Paris to study French literature at the Sorbonne before studying filmmaking at La Fémis. She directed her graduation film Shudders in 2011 and Zakaria in 2013.

In 2015, her first feature film, As I Open My Eyes, was awarded at the Venice Film Festival before being selected by many international festivals and won more than 70 prizes, among them the Jury Prize at the Dubai Film Festival.

A Tale of Love and Desire, her second feature film, closed the Critics’ Week at Cannes 2021. Her third feature film, Whispers, is currently in post-production and will be released in 2026.