The unreleased Egyptian film "Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim," directed by well-known director Sherif El Bendary, won three awards at the Final Cut in Venice workshop, according to Egyptian film distributor MAD Solutions' official statement .
The Venice Film Market's workshop, which provides financial support for the post-production of films submitted from Africa and the Arab world, awarded the film 30,000 euros worth of support, as part of the ongoing installment of the Venice International Film Festival.
The film received 10,000 euros from the Paris-based Centre National du Cinema et de Li'mage Animee (CNC) foundation for post-production services in France and 10,000 euros from the French Knightworks for visual and special effects.
In addition, the remaining 10,000 euros comes from Titra TVS to be spent on digital colors correction, DCP bar and adding French or English film subtitles.
The film, based on Ibrahim El Batout's story, tells the story of Ali, a young man who believes his late girlfriend's soul has been reincarnated in a goat which he travels with to the coast and meets a depressed engineer named Ibrahim as they trek across Egypt together.
The film, which is currently in post-production, was written by Ahmed Amer, produced by Mohamed Hefzy's Fortress Film Clinic and Hossam Elouan's Transit Films and will be distributed by MAD Solutions later this year.
"I am glad that this project has managed to impress such an established jury and the industry attendance in its first exposure to an international market. This is an indication that we are [headed] in the right direction," said Hefzy according to MAD Solutions.
Although the film will be Bendary's first feature film, the young director is no stranger to awards or international film festivals, as Bendary's first short film "Rise and Shine," starring Hend Sabry, showed at 75 film festivals in 33 countries and won 15 awards.
His second short film "At Day's End" participated in 50 film festivals and won 14 awards. In addition, Bendary directed Curfew, a chapter in the collective feature film 18 Days, which was an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011.