Ibrahim El Batout's movie,Hawi, has received a special award in the 8th Annual Tarifa Africa Film Festivalhosted in Spain, which is specialized only for movies of the African continent. The festival was hosted from 11th-19th June and honored the film for its serious research about the political reality in Egypt and its relation with the current overall political state.

Moreover, the film recieved the Critics Award in the 17th annual Rabat Film Festival which was hosted from 24thJune- 2nd July 2011.

The film was well received by all audience who described as "very different from the typical form of Egyptian cinema, portraying a new picture as it elaborated more on the social and political status in Egypt prior to the revolution, indicating an upcoming explosion"

El Batout is currently preparing to travel the South-African city Durban to participate in the 32nd Durban International Film Festival which is happening from 21st-31st July. The film will be showing twice, on Sunday 24th July then on Sunday 31st July, in order to compete with another 22 participating films.

It is worthy of mentioning, that the film was first commercially screened in Egypt on Wednesday 22nd June in both Cairo and Alexandria after a special screening for journalists and all contributing artists that was organized in Alexandria making it the first film to ever have its premier away from Cairo.

Hawi is Ibrahim El Batout's third feature film after Ithaki and Ein Shams, and has participated in numerous international film festivals around the world, starting from Tribeca Film Festival where is won Best Arabic Film.

Hawi is written and directed by Ibrahim El Batout, starring a huge compilation of rising stars from Alexandria among them; Mohamed El Said, Sherif El Desouki and Rania Aref, in addition to the renowned Hanan Yousef. The entire shooting took place in Alexandria and produced by Ibrahim El Batout's production company Ain Shams. On the other hand the Arab Company for Production and Distribution did the films' distribution.