The Egyptian film “feathers” won three awards in the sixth session of the Critics’ Awards for Arab Films, held on the sidelines of the 75th session of the Cannes Film Festival.
“Rish” won the grand prize for best film, and director Omar Al-Zuhairi won the best director award, in addition to the best screenplay award with screenwriter Ahmed Amer.
These awards are not the first for the film, as it won the Best Film award at the Roberto Rossellini Awards at the Pingyao International Film Festival in China.
Al-Zuhairi also won the award for Best Talent in the Middle East, awarded by Variety International magazine, within the activities of the El Gouna Film Festival, as well as the Fibrisi Award for Best Film in parallel competitions at the International Festival, in addition to the Grand Prize in the International Critics’ Week competition at the 74th session of the Cannes Festival. International Film.
The film had been subjected to a campaign by some Egyptian artists when it was shown at the El Gouna Festival, and was accused of “offending Egypt’s reputation”.
“Rishes” is the first feature film directed by Omar Al-Zuhairi. It was co-written with scriptwriter Ahmed Amer, and it was produced by the French Juliette Leuper and Pierre Menahim.
The story of the film revolves around a poor family consisting of a father, a mother and three children, and one day the father decides to celebrate the birthday of one of his sons, so he brings a magician to present entertaining paragraphs to the guests, but when the magician uses the father to perform a paragraph, he enters a large wooden box, turns it into a chicken, and disappears the father.
After that, the wife tries by all means to recover the father, and searches for the sorcerer, but to no avail. After she exhausts her few pounds, she begins to rely on herself to provide for the family’s needs, and pays her eldest son to work in the factory where his father worked to pay off their debts.
Then, after the family’s situation is relatively stable, the father appears again, but his condition is miserable and he lacks speech and movement, which makes him a new burden on the family.