The Ismailia Festival to honor Steve James, Mahdi Fleifel, and Salwa Mohamed Ali.

The Ismailia Festival to honor Steve James, Mahdi Fleifel, and Salwa Mohamed Ali.

The Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts (IIFFDS) will honour American director Steve James, Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel, and Egyptian actress Salwa Mohamed Ali. The honoring aims to cover three dimensions of the film industry, international, Arab, and Egyptian.

The 25th edition of the festival is scheduled to be held from February 28th to March 5th. The festival will screen films which the honourees participated in.

 The festival will release a book edited by the critic Arwa Tag eldeen titled ‘Steve James, Social Patriotism in Cinema’، and will feature three films by director Mahdi Fleifel: A World Not Ours, A Man Drowning, and A Man Returned. Additionally.

the festival will screen three films by Salwa Mohamed Ali: Magdy Morgan’s But Me (2008), Ahmed Haddad Primus Stove (2013), and Shadi Fouad’s Habib (2019).

Egyptian critic Essam Zakaria is the festival's head, under the supervision of the National Film Festival led by Hussein Bakr. The festival is one of the oldest and most prestigious festivals in the Arab world, and one of the first specialized festivals in documentaries and shorts, having launched its first edition in 1991.