Cairo Festival's Industry Arm Backs 17 Projects and Links Books to Screens

The Cairo International Film Festival runs from 11 to 20 November 2026, and its industry programme is putting money and mentoring behind new films from across the Arab world. The festival marks 50 years since it was founded.

The industry side is called Cairo Industry Days, led by Mohamed Sayed Abdel-Rehim. Its eighth edition runs from 14 to 19 November, and it is the marketplace where filmmakers meet the people who can help them finish and sell their work. Variety reported the details on 11 November.

The main thread is Cairo Film Connection, a co-production platform for Arab filmmakers. Co-production means two or more companies, often in different countries, share the cost and the creative control of a film. This year is the platform's 12th. It selected 17 projects from 12 countries.

This year the platform added a mentorship programme. Until now, support largely ended when the festival did. Selected projects will now get a year of help after the event. Five international experts will work with them on development, pitching, budgeting and financing, festival strategy, broadcasting and legal matters. Cairo Film Connection will also present 43 individual awards in 2026.

A second new initiative, called 'From Book to Screen', aims to reconnect Egypt's film and publishing industries. Ten books were chosen from ten Egyptian publishing houses. Adapting a novel or a non-fiction title into a film or series is one of the oldest routes into cinema, and the scheme is designed to make those links easier to form.

Cairo Industry Days has also teamed up with the Sundance Documentary Fund for an online session. It is aimed at projects from last year's Cairo Film Connection that still need money to finish.

The platform's earlier projects are already travelling. According to Variety, Sara Ishaq's The Station screened at Cannes Critics' Week. Rania Rafei's The Day of Wrath: Tales from Tripoli screened at the Berlinale Forum. Mohanad Yaqubi's Revolutionaries Never Die won the Special Jury Prize at the Locarno Film Festival.

Festivals like these matter because they are where films often get their first buyers. A project that wins support in Cairo can reach Cannes, Berlin or Locarno two years later, and each step depends on people choosing to back it. The 2026 festival will show how many of this year's 17 projects follow the same path.