El Sawy Culture Wheel is reaching out to every creative mind locked down under quarantine with their very first mobile film competition. The project was long planned since before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, but by sheer coincidence it ended up being more than well-suited to our lockdown lifestyle. The competition’s judging panel is headed by Khairy Bishara, and joined by the likes of Mohamed Hefzy, Rosaline Elbay and Hamza El Eily - exactly the kind of stars you want looking through your TikTok collection.

“We’ve been working on this competition for some time," Mohamed Abdallah, the cinema department manager at El Sawy Culture Wheel and the competition’s organiser, told CairoScene. "We didn’t plan to host it online at all, but we had to adapt, and it ended up making a lot of sense for quarantine."

"We’re always on our phones making some kind of video content every day, whether it's TikTok or Snapchat," Abdallah continued. "What happens if we actually try to make a film?” Submissions are open to absolutely anyone, whether they’re a first-timer or a professional, and gives complete thematic freedom.

The only rules are as follows: the film must be shot with a smartphone, must be between two to five minutes long, must take up at least 250 megapixels, and must be filmed indoors— we don’t want anyone breaking quarantine in the name of art. After that’s all done, you have until May 4th to submit your work on their Facebook page.

The competition will be held between May 9th and 11th where submissions will be live-streamed on El Sawy Culture Wheel’s YouTube channel. How will you express yourself during quarantine?