Zurich and El Gouna Film Festivals Forge Strategic Partnership
The Zurich Film Festival and Egypt's El Gouna Film Festival have struck a strategic partnership to collaborate on programming and shared initiatives, with the first joint efforts set for ZFF's 22nd edition this autumn (Deadline).
ZFF runs September 24 to October 4. Less than two weeks later, El Gouna picks up the baton in the Red Sea resort of the same name, running October 15 to 26. The overlap is no accident: the partnership is built so that films and guests can flow between the two festivals with minimal friction.
The first title to make that journey is Dolphins: My Close Encounters, a feature documentary following Swiss marine biologist Angela Ziltener and her decades-long study of dolphins in the Red Sea. It will have its world premiere in Zurich, then travel to El Gouna for its MENA premiere — the Middle East and North Africa region, a territory sales agents track closely when positioning documentaries for international buyers.
Behind the partnership sit two festivals with very different profiles but complementary ambitions. ZFF, the second-largest film festival in the German-speaking world, drew 135,000 visitors in 2025 and entered a new chapter that year following a management buyout led by CEO Christian Jungen. It already cooperates with Spain's San Sebastian Film Festival on industry guests. GFF, launched in 2017 by Egyptian tycoons Naguib and Samih Sawiris — Samih created the resort town of El Gouna itself — has quickly established itself as a regional showcase on the autumn festival circuit.
The human connection predates the formal deal. Jungen noted that Samih Sawiris has been familiar with the Zurich Film Festival for many years, and that they are now joining forces. GFF Artistic Director Andrew Mohsen said the partnership will facilitate synergies with industry players from various parts of the world. ZFF Director Reta Guetg framed it in broader terms, saying the partnership reflects the festival's function of building bridges and connecting people who share its beliefs.
What makes the pairing click is the calendar. Zurich and El Gouna sit roughly two weeks apart on the same autumn corridor, close enough for a single film — or a single filmmaker — to play both without a punishing intercontinental detour. For programmers, that means a shared talent pool. For sales agents, it means two audiences for one premiere run. And for a documentary about Red Sea dolphins, the geography is almost too neat: the research happens in Egyptian waters, the film launches in Switzerland, and then it screens for the region whose coastline the story is about.
El Gouna has also been building its own infrastructure. The festival's CineGouna Emerge programme, which supports young and emerging talent, runs in partnership with the Drosos Foundation and the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (El Gouna Film Festival). The festival has additionally named Global Advisors as its official public partner under a separate strategic arrangement (El Gouna Film Festival).
For audiences, the upshot is simpler than the deal structure. A Swiss festival goer in late September and an Egyptian one in mid-October may now find themselves watching the same films, introduced by the same directors, as two halves of a single autumn conversation.
