Tuesday March 19th, 2024
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Egyptian Film Feathers Wins Best Film at China's Pingyao Film Festival

Following the surreal story of a man who turns into the chicken, and the family who has to pick up the pieces in the aftermath, 'Feathers' won best film at China's Pingyao International Film Festival.

Cairo Scene

Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy’s ‘Feathers’ has won Best Film under the Roberto Rossellini Awards during the annual Pingyao International Film Festival in China, along with a USD 20,000 prize. The Roberto Rossellini Awards - named after one of Italy’s most prominent neorealist directors - is given to films in the ‘Crouching Tigers’ section, dedicated to international directorial debuts and second features.

The plot of the surrealist comedy-drama is set off by one man’s Kafkaesque transformation into a chicken during a children’s birthday party, prompting his wife to undergo her own personal metamorphosis as she scrambles to pick up the pieces and protect her children in the absence of the family’s patriarchal figure.

‘Feathers’ previously won the Grand Prix and the FIPRESCI Award at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival's Critics' Week.

In 2014, El Zohairy’s short film ‘Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Toilet at Kilometre 375’ became the first Egyptian film to compete in the Cannes’ Cinéfondation event. El Zohairy has worked with some of the most prominent faces in cinema like Youssef Chahine and Yousry Nasrallah.