Cairo - Egypt |Monday, November 19, 2018:
iProductions has received five awards at the 22nd edition of the National Festival for Egyptian Cinema through two of its films. Mawlana added four more awards to its list, including Best Script (Director/Writer Magdy Ahmed Ali); Best Dialogue (Writer Ibrahim Eissa); the Production Award that was received by Ahmed Fahmy, Managing Director of iProductions; and Best Actor for Amr Saad. This comes in addition to the two awards that Mawlana received last year. Moreover, for his role in Sheikh Jackson, Maged El Kedwany also received the Best Supporting Actor Award at the festival.
Landing its world premiere at the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), Mawlana received a number of awards, such as the Best Feature Film and Best Actor awards at the Luxor African Film Festival, the Circle Award for Best Film at the Washington DC Filmfest, the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Twin Cities Film Festival in USA, and the Best Actor Award for Amr Saad at the Alexandria International Film Festival.
Written and directed by the award-winning director Magdy Ahmed Ali, Mawlana is based on Ibrahim Eissa's best-selling novel which was shortlisted for the Arabic Booker (International Prize for Arabic fiction-IPAF) and 11 editions of the book have been published since its release. Mawlana is produced by iProductions with Mohamed Al Adl (El Adl Group) as Executive Producer. The film stars Amr Saad, Dorra, Bayoumi Fouad, Ahmed Magdy, Reham Haggag, Sabry Fawwaz, Lotfy Labib, Eman El-Asy, and Ahmed Rateb
Mawlana tells the story of the well-known preacher Hatem Al Shenawy who hosts a series of moral, ethical and religious debates through his popular TV show, which attracts worldwide audiences of millions of people. Best known for his clear-cut and sensible answers to questions posed by callers and guests, Hatem's audience is unaware of his inner conflicts. He has to conceal what he really thinks about religious issues, especially under the restrictions imposed by the state security.
Sheikh Jackson is written and directed by Amr Salama and co-written by Omar Khaled. The film stars Ahmad Al Fishawy, Maged El Kedwany, Ahmed Malek, along with guest stars Amina Khalil, Dorra, Basma and Mahmoud El Bezawy. Sheikh Jackson is co-produced by The Producers, Film Clinic and iProductions. The German company Media Luna is responsible for distributing the film outside the Arab world, while Cleopatra Entertainment acquired the film's screening rights in North America planning to release it in theaters in the first quarter of 2018. MAD Solutions is handling Sheikh Jackson's marketing and designed its poster that is used regionally and internationally.
Sheikh Jackson landed its world premiere at the 42nd Toronto International Film Festival within the Special Presentations programme. The film made its Arab world premiere by opening the first edition of El Gouna Film Festival, where it competed in the festival's Feature Narrative Competition, and marked European premiere at the 61st BFI London Film Festival. Sheikh Jackson also screened at the Carthage Film Festival (JCC), Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), within the New Egyptian Cinema 2016-2017 section, and the Arab Cinema Week in New York. The film was selected by a committee at the Egyptian Cinema Syndicate to be Egypt's official submission to the Best Foreign-Language Film at the Academy Awards 2018. The film was commercially released in theaters across more than seven Arab countries.