Carthage Film Festival's administration has selected Kareem Hanafy's film The Gate of Departure to contend at the Best Debut Work in the 26rd edition of the festival (21 - 28 November).

The Gate of Departure traces a young man who dreams of exploring the world as he grows up in isolation along with his grandmother mother, who due to the latter's fears that he would abandon her- just as his father did- decides to lock him up in the house.

Directed and written by Kareem Hanafy, The Gate of Departure stars Salwa Khattab, Ahmed Magdy, Amaal Abdel Hadi and Shams Labib. Khayal Art Productions is the producing company of the film with support from Egypt's Ministry of Culture while MAD Solutions is in charge of the film's distributor in the Arab world.

Last year, the film was picked by the Cairo International Film Festival, where it was the only Egyptian picture in official selection. The Gate of Departure received wide critical acclaim and was awarded the Silver Pyramid for Best Artistic Contribution.

The film has topped film critic Mohamed Reda's Best 10 Festival Films in 2014 list as he wrote in Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper "Egyptian feature film The Gate of Departure deserves to be the film of the year for being the most daring."