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PRODUCTION Egypt / France

Sherif El Bendary’s Ali, the Goat, and Ibrahim is all set to reach worldwide audiences

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- French outfit Loco Films has taken on the world sales of this Egyptian-French debut feature, which world-premiered last December at the Dubai Film Festival

Sherif El Bendary’s Ali, the Goat, and Ibrahim is all set to reach worldwide audiences
Ali, the Goat, and Ibrahim by Sherif El Bendary

Sherif El Bendary’s debut feature, Ali, the Goat, and Ibrahim [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile
]
, follows Ali, who lives with his mother and his beloved goat called Nada, and Ibrahim, a depressed sound engineer. Ali, Ibrahim and Nada travel to Alexandria and the Sinai in an attempt to escape real life, and on the way they struggle with self-acceptance as they forge a stronger friendship. The feature is now being sold abroad thanks to an agreement reached with Paris-based Loco Films.

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El Bendary has already worked on series, such as the detective show Esteefa (2015), as well as the comedy short Har Gaf Saifan (2015), but he has now made the leap to feature territory with Ali, the Goat, and Ibrahim, which world-premiered in competition at last year’s Dubai Film Festival and also screened at Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in Paris, which aims to lend greater support to world cinema productions backed by France (read the news).

The film is the latest production by Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy, of Cairo-based Film Clinic, and was co-produced by Guillaume de Seille of Paris-based Arizona Productions. The film took five years to produce, at a time when the Egyptian economy and political landscape were somewhat unstable.

The production was supported by many Middle Eastern and European grants and programmes, including Venice’s Final Cut initiative, Dubai’s Enjaaz post-production fund, the Doha Film Institute and France’s World Cinema Support, which is administered by the country’s National Cinema Centre (CNC); this makes the feature eligible for the CNC’s new ACM Distribution scheme, aimed at boosting the international distribution of films backed by the fund.

The deal with Loco Films covers all world territories apart from the Middle East and North Africa region, which is co-handled by Cairo-based Mad Solutions (which is planning a first-quarter 2017 release in the home market) and Film Clinic Indie Film Distribution.

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