Egyptian movie Feathers continues to be selected for major international film festivals while consistently winning prestigious awards.
The film, which caused a stir in Egyptian and Arab art circles after being screened at the El Gouna Film Festival last month, won four major awards at the 32nd edition of the Carthage Film Festival on Sunday, including the Golden Taint, the festival’s top prize.
It was also awarded “Best Screenplay,” which went to Ahmad Amer and Omar El Zouhairy and “Best Female Performance,” which went to the lead actress, Demyana Nassar.
Feathers received the award three weeks after earning the best Arab Narrative Film at the El Gouna Film Festival in Egypt, which saw many actors walk out of the screening, claiming the movie damaged Egypt’s image and portrayed poverty badly.
The outrage came despite the fact that the Egyptian, French, Dutch and Greek coproduction, Zouhairy’s first feature film, had become the first Egyptian movie to win the top prize at Cannes Critics’ Week and the FIPRESCI months prior.
The critically acclaimed film depicts the lives of a marginalized Egyptian family living in depravity but able, in some form or another, to make ends meet through the father’s income. However, their lives are suddenly flipped on their head after he is turned into a chicken, and the rest of the film revolves around the mother’s efforts to reverse the curse and face a world she is unfamiliar with to sustain her family.
