Fresh off winning the El Gouna Bronze Star, the Egyptian workplace thriller THE SETTLEMENT by Mohamed Rashad has claimed the Audience Award at the Afrikaldia Film Festival, held from October 28th to November 4th in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain.
 
Dedicated to showcasing African cinema, Afrikaldia Film Festival aims to offer fresh perspectives on Africa and foster awareness of its diverse, often overlooked realities.
 
Most recently, the film held its Arab world premiere at the eighth El Gouna Film Festival, where it was awarded the El Gouna Bronze Star for Narrative Film.
 
Prior to that, the film held its world premiere to critical acclaim in the Perspectives section of this year’s Berlin International Film Festival — the only Egyptian film featured in that category; it later received its first accolade, the Audience Award at the sixth MiWorld Young Film Festival, before continuing its international journey with screenings at Italy’s African, Asian, and Latin American Film Festival (FESCAAL) and the Bolzano Film Festival Bozen.
 
Inspired by true events, the film follows two brothers — 23-year-old Hossam and his 12-year-old sibling Maro — living in a marginalized community in Alexandria. After their father dies in a workplace accident, the local factory offers them jobs as compensation, sidestepping legal accountability. As they settle into their new roles, the brothers begin to question the circumstances surrounding their father’s death.
 
Featuring rising talents Adham Shukr, Ziad Islam, Hajar Omar, Mohamed Abdel Hady, and Emad Ghoneim, THE SETTLEMENT is shot by cinematographer Mahmoud Lotfi and edited by Heba Othman, known for her work on the acclaimed Sudanese film GOODBYE JULIA.
 
A joint production between Egypt, France, Germany, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, the film is produced by Hala Lotfy of Hassala Films (Cairo), with co-producers Etienne de Ricaud of Caractères Productions (Paris), Kesmat Elsayed of Seera Films GmbH (Berlin), and ART (Jeddah). Ricaud’s recent film MY FAVORITE CAKE won both the FIPRESCI Prize and the Ecumenical Jury Prize at Berlinale, while Elsayed’s ABO ZAABAL 89 was awarded Best Feature Documentary at the 45th Cairo International Film Festival. MAD World handles global sales, while MAD Distribution oversees distribution across the Arab World.
 
During its development phase, THE SETTLEMENT received support from a slew of prestigious international funding bodies, including the Berlinale World Cinema Fund, IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund Script and Development Initiative along with Hubert Bals Plus Co-Production Minority Support, the Doha Film Institute, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, the Red Sea Development Fund, the Fonds Image De La Francophonie Fund, and the El Gouna Film Festival’s CineGouna Funding.
 
Mohamed Rashad is an Egyptian director, writer, and producer who graduated from the University of Alexandria with a degree in civil engineering. After completing a two-year filmmaking workshop at the Jesuit Cultural Film School of Alexandria, he directed two short fiction films: FROM AFAR (2005) and MAXIM (2007). He later served as an assistant director on several notable films, including COMING FORTH BY DAY, directed by Hala Lotfy, with whom he co-founded Hassala Films.
 
In 2016, he directed his first feature documentary film, LITTLE EAGLES, which premiered at the Dubai International Film Festival and won the Best Documentary Award at the Malmö Arab Film Festival and the Jury Award at the Luxor African Film Festival. Later in 2019, he served as a producer on Ramez Youssef’s feature documentary THE PROFESSION, which received a Black Iris Award—Special Mention at the Amman International Film Festival.