Zawya Shorts Film Fest. Reveals 10th Edition Winners

Out of four short film programmes and 28 films spanning documentary, fiction and animation, Zawya Shorts Film Festival has revealed this year’s winners.

With a jury comprising directors Noha Adel (Spring Came on Laughing, 2025) and Omar El Zohairy (Feathers, 2021), alongside actor Amir El Masry (Giant, 2026), the trio selected a diverse roster of films guided by a simple ethos: choosing the works that “surprised them,” as Adel and Zohairy told CairoScene.

When asked about the role of production value in their deliberations, the jury confirmed it held little weight compared to talent and a distinct cinematic voice. That philosophy was reflected in their decision to award Best Film jointly to ‘My Brother, My Brother’ and ‘A Friend No Longer Here’ - two films equally gripping in emotion, though vastly different in scale.

The former, directed by Saad and Abdelrahman Dnewar, is an Egypt–France–Germany co-production that blends animation with live action and bears the marks of a significantly larger budget. ‘A Friend No Longer Here’, meanwhile, stands as a more intimate work a “poetic yet radical” film, as the jury described it, exploration of friendship between two teenage boys in Saudi Arabia. Directed by Ahmed El Shabrawy, the film unfolds through archival phone footage, with El Shabrawy himself serving as both narrator and protagonist, and edited by Ahmed El Saaty. Despite their contrasting forms, the two films ultimately shared the festival’s top prize.

Other awards included acclaimed filmmaker Sameh Alaa’s ‘S the Wolf’, which clinched both the Jury Prize and the Audience Award, marking the director’s first venture into comedy and animation as a successful one.

Another comedic highlight, Quarshie by director Omar Shama, received a Special Mention from the jury. The short follows the story of Zamalek football icon Kwasi Quarshie, combining dramatized moments of his arrival at the club with his brief yet memorable rise to stardom in Egyptian football history.

The Best Director award went to Abanoub Youssef for his short Breaking Out of Ali and Maher’s Base. The Coventry Award was given to Zeina Amr for her “delicate yet brave” film, according to the jury statement, ‘The Day After’. Meanwhile, the Dahshur Workshop Award went to ‘Cairo, Standstill’, directed by Amr Abed, co-written by Yomna Khattab and produced by Ayman El Amir.

The four short film programmes will be screened again at Zawya Cinema starting March 8th to 15th.