El Gouna selects 5 filmmakers for third Rising Stars cohort

Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival named five filmmakers to its third Rising Stars cohort on Oct. 18, according to an exclusive Deadline article.

The 2026 selection extends a talent-development initiative started in 2024 under CineGouna Emerge, the festival’s industry strand for film professionals from the Middle East and North Africa.

The group comprises Egyptian director Abdallah Dnewar; Saudi writer-director Razan AlSoghayer; Palestinian filmmaker Omar Rammal; Palestinian Jordanian director-producer Asmahan Bkerat; and Syrian director of photography, editor and director Rama Abdi.

“This year’s Rising Stars are already leaving their mark, each in their own corner of the industry,” Hayat Aljowaily, director of CineGouna Emerge & International Engagement, told Deadline. She spearheaded the Rising Stars program.

Aljowaily framed the program as recognition rather than early-stage training. “What we offer them is not a beginning, but a moment of recognition: a chance to be seen, to be heard, and to find one another,” she said.

El Gouna is positioning the selection inside a broader industry platform. Deadline said CineGouna also includes a Forum talks lineup, a Funding project showcase, a Market and a new Series focus.

The cohort gives El Gouna another way to draw attention to Arab filmmakers as regional festivals compete to serve as launchpads for directors, producers and projects. The article did not report financing, prizes or distribution commitments attached to Rising Stars.

Dnewar, based in Cairo, produced the Rotterdam-selected animated short My Brother, My Brother and the Locarno-selected Khufu , Deadline said. He is head of specials at Zest, an Egyptian media company, where he oversaw the Eish Short Film Competition, a joint El Gouna-WFP initiative.

AlSoghayer works between Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands. Deadline said her debut short Son Of Badriyah is screening in the current El Gouna edition, and described her films as rooted in Saudi culture and personal experience.

Rammal, born in the West Bank, has worked across digital storytelling and independent film. Deadline said his visual work has drawn hundreds of millions of views on digital platforms, and that Everyday in Gaza won best short documentary at the 2026 David di Donatello awards in Italy. His fiction short Kentucky Gaza is making its MENA premiere at El Gouna after showing in the International Competition at Clermont-Ferrand, according to the article.

Bkerat’s debut feature documentary Concrete Land premiered at Locarno and won the Insights Audience Award at VIFF, Deadline said. The film screened at the BFI London Film Festival and is scheduled on a festival tour including Dok Leipzig, IDFA and Doha. She is producing If These Stones Could Talk and Landwards , and has begun early production on another directed feature.

Abdi, based in Damascus, started filmmaking in 2018 across commercial, journalistic and cinema work, Deadline said. She directed the short Fish Dance in 2022 and is working on House Number 7 , a first feature-length documentary she is presenting at the CineGouna Funding showcase.

Amr Mansi, El Gouna’s co-founder and executive director, said the regional mission matters to the festival. “We need to ensure that stories from this region are shared with the rest of the world. We strongly believe that our participants will be the dominant voice in telling these stories.”

Andrew Mohsen, the festival’s artistic director, told Deadline that Rising Stars participants are integrated into the wider festival rather than separated from it. “Many of these filmmakers are here with projects they are pitching at CineGouna Funding, or with films that are competing, or have competed, in our official selection,” he said.

What remains unclear from the article is how the five were selected, how long the cohort activities run and whether the exposure has any formal commercial pathway after the festival. Deadline said participants will meet industry figures and join festival activities including panels, media events and red-carpet appearances.