NEWS

As part of Ergo Media Ventures’ endeavor to support Egyptian film festivals, the film industry and aspirations of emerging Arab directors and filmmakers, it continues to sponsor The Cairo Film Festival’s Cairo Film Connection co-production platform in partnership with Mad Solutions for the fourth year in a row.
This year, Egyptian film project “Life After Siham” won the MAD-Ergo award of USD 50,000 minimum guarantee for distribution in the Arab world. The winning project, which is directed by French-Egyptian filmmaker Namir Abdel Messeeh, follows a French film director conducting a filmmaking workshop in Egypt which turns into a way for him to confront the trauma of his mother’s death. “Siham,” which is co-produced by France’s Camille Laemle and Egypt’s Ali El Araby, scored another award which is ART’s $10,000 cash prize.
Namir was born in Paris in 1974 and attended La Femis to study film directing. He filmed several short fiction films before delving into deeper personal issues in his documentary “You, Waguih,” which depicted his father, a former political prisoner under Nasser. His feature documentary, “The Virgin, the Copts, and Me,” was selected for screening at Cannes and Berlin.
Cairo Film Connection is a space for Arab filmmakers to receive the support they need to bring their films to completion. The 8th Cairo Film Connection presented awards amounted to more than $300,000 worth of in-kind and cash awards within the fourth edition of Cairo Industry Days.
During the past three years, the Cairo Film Connection contributed to providing prizes worth more than $600,000, which contributed to the support of more than 120 Arab filmmakers, including Yousry Nasrallah, Kawthar Bin Haniyeh, Sameh Alaa, Mahdi Al-Barsawy, Basil Ghandour, Haider Rashid and May Zayed And others, and Ergo, Media Ventures has been one of the main supporters of the forum over its past participation.
On another note, Gamal Guemeih; Ergo Media Ventures’ Investment manager, participated in the Festival’s “Cairo Industry Days” events where he moderated a panel titled “Glocal Film Financing” with the participation of renowned producers: Kayvan Mashayekh, George Schoucair and Christopher Simon.
Ergo, is an investment company focusing primarily on investing in digital and traditional media content, distribution, and acts as enablers to support and empower promising talents, ultimately advancing the media and film industries. Ergo is a subsidiary of Ayady Egypt for Investment and Development and is managed by NI Capital.