Ahead of its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, the 5th edition of El Gouna Film Festival (Oct 14 to Oct 22) has announced the selection of Amira film, by director Mohamed Diab, to participate in the Feature Narrative Competition, marking its Arab world premiere. The film is slated to release soon in a number of Arab countries.

Over the past years, El Gouna Film Festival has become one of the most prominent film festivals in the Arab world. The festival’s upcoming edition will showcase seven films, including Amira.

Amira will compete within the Orizzonti competition at the upcoming edition of the Venice International Film Festival, which will run from Sept.1 till Sept.11. The film is Mohamed Diab’s third film as a director after 678 (2010) and his hit film Clash (Eshtebak) (2016), which nabbed over 30 international awards. The film is set in Palestine and marks the first Palestinian film by an Egyptian director.

Amira, a 17-year-old Palestinian, was conceived with the smuggled sperm of her imprisoned father, Nawar. Although their relationship since birth has been restricted to prison visits, he remains her hero. His absence in her life is overcompensated with love and affection from those surrounding her. But when a failed attempt to conceive another child reveals Nawar’s infertility, Amira’s world turns upside down.

Amira features a stellar Pan-Arab cast, including Saba Mubarak, Ali Suliman, and Tara Abboud, who lands her first cinematic leading role as Amira, as well as Kais Nashif and Waleed Zuaiter. The film is written by the trio Mohamed, Khaled, and Sherine Diab and edited by Ahmed Hafez who previously worked with Mohamed Diab on Clash film.

The film is produced by Film Clinic (Mohamed Hefzy), Agora Audiovisuals (Mona Abdelwahab), Acamedia Pictures (Moez Masoud), in co-production with Taher Media Production (Youssef El Taher) and The Imaginarium Films (Rula Nasser). Also, Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad, Amira Diab and Sarah Goher are the film’s producers. The film’s marketing is handled by MAD Solutions, which also handles the film’s distribution along with Lagoonie Film Production across the Arab world.

Mohamed Diab is an award-winning writer and director whose work usually addresses issues related to the Egyptian society. Diab started his career as a writer with the blockbuster Egyptian franchise El Gezira (The Island) films that are considered to be the highest-grossing Egyptian and Arabic films of all times. He followed that by writing a number of hit films, including Badal Faqed (Replacement) and 1000 Mabrouk (Congratulations). As a director, Diab kick-started his career by directing the film 678 (2010), which was described by the New York Times as an "unmistakably harbinger of the revolution". In 2016, he directed Clash (Eshtebak) that opened the Un Certain Regard section of the 69th Cannes Film Festival and was highly acclaimed by critics and many international A-list stars, including Tom Hanks.