Aswan International Women’s Film Festival (AIWFF) will honour director Hala Khalil at this year’s film festival. Khalil is known for work that centres the stories and struggles of Egyptian women. The festival chose to recognize her because of her unique boldness in portraying these stories, as well as in raising issues that affect all of Egyptian society.

Khalil’s work includes the short film ‘The Kite’ (1997), as well as feature films ‘The Best of Times’ (2004) and ‘Cut and Paste’ (2006). Khalil has won multiple awards for her work, including awards from Arab Film Festival, Rotterdam Arab Camera Festival and Rabat Film Festival.

The festival’s management noted Khalil’s recent absence from the cinematic scene, as well as the director’s multiple cinematic projects that had been suspended. According to the festival, the barriers Khalil has faced are indicative of a larger crisis facing the Egyptian film industry. When announcing their intention to honour Khalil, festival organisers stressed the importance of female directors who, like Khalil, enrich the Egyptian film industry.

AIWFF was established in 2017 by Mohamed Abdel Khalek. This is the first annual Egyptian film festival that focuses on representing women’s issues and celebrating the success of female filmmakers. This festival also has the goal of teaching youth in Aswan about filmmaking, and features a specialised program of workshops and training opportunities for this purpose.

Khalil will be honoured at the eighth session of the Aswan International Women’s Festival, which will be held from April 20th to the 25th.