The Aswan International Women Film Festival (AIWFF) will see honoring ceremonies for star actress Donia Samir Ghanem at its fifth edition; scheduled to take place from 20 to 26 February, in the great historic Upper Egyptian city of Aswan.
"She is one of the most important talents in Egyptian cinema now with her many acclaimed films that attracted viewers," stated the AIWFF Head Scriptwriter Mohamed Abdel-Khaleq on Tuesday.
The elder daughter of the hugely popular acting couple; Samir Ghanem and Dalal Abdel-Aziz, Donia has in recent years, proved excellent talent in such an outstanding variety of roles in various genres in both cinema and TV, as well as singing a collection of popular songs.
The 1985-born powerfully shot to fame through a memorable appearance as a teenager in her Nada role, the daughter of Yehia El-Fakharany and Abdel-Aziz in 2001 s TV hit Lel-A adala Wogoh Kathierah leaving a remark on TV with successive hits in a short time that paved her way to cinema.
She was quickly put on the frontline to share the lead with some of the biggest cinema stars in comedy/romance hits like Yana Ya Khalty with Mohamed Henedy, X-Large and Laff W-Dawaran with Ahmed Helmy, 365 Youm Sa ada with Ahmed Ezz, at the same time proving her talent in tragedy and in distinguished appearances like Cabaret and El-Farah of Sameh Abdel-Aziz.
Donia Samir Ghanem s pairing with Ahmed Mekky introduced some of the two stars most important comedy films; Teer Enta and La Taraga Wala Esteslam , in addition to dominating multiple TV seasons with the El-Kebeer Awi series.
After Mekky s era, Donia Samir Ghanem confirmed her place among the most favored TV stars, especially during Ramadan season, enjoying a bigger creative space in various entertainment talents like singing and dancing in successive smash hits; Lahfa, Nelly W-Sherehan, Fil Lala Land and Badal El-Hdaoutah Talata .
Celebrating younger-generation star actresses of Egyptian cinema is one of the main initiatives of the festival, explains writer Hassan Abou El-Ela who manages the event.
Among the honorees unveiled earlier for the 2021 edition is Elham Shahin, the festivals 2017 honorary president, who won the Best Actress Award at the Cairo International Film Festival earlier this month for her leading role in Amir Ramses Curfew that is currently in theaters.
A month before Egypt s temporal lockdown last spring, the fourth edition of the AIWFF hosted many activities as 31 films from 29 countries screened and competed in the two categories usually juried by a majority of prestigious women filmmakers and experts.
The AIWFF, who held two international premieres in 2020, is catching more attention from the Aswan audience year after year by the screenings and the various filmmaking workshops with most of feature, short and documentary films of various languages that have been subtitled into Arabic to maintain its fan-base turnout.
Backed by the culture and tourism ministers as well as the National Council of Women and the cinema syndicate, the Aswan Film Festival is the first Egyptian film festival specialised in workshops for youth in Aswan, where dozens of locals are trained in various programmes.
