Cairo International Film Festival

The Arab world's oldest major festival

The Cairo International Film Festival was launched in 1976; the 2026 edition marks its fiftieth anniversary. It takes place in November, under the auspices of Egypt's Ministry of Culture. It is the only festival in the Arab world and Africa ranked in category "A" by FIAPF (the International Federation of Film Producers Associations), the status of international competitive festivals such as Cannes, Berlin or Venice.

The festival is chaired by actor Hussein Fahmy; its artistic director is critic Mohamed Tarek. Its top prize is the Golden Pyramid.

The 2026 edition in figures

The 47th edition presents 145 films from 64 countries: 109 fiction features, 17 documentaries and 29 shorts, including 17 world premieres. Europe is strongly represented: 31 European countries take part, and nine of the twelve films in the International Competition were made in Europe or co-produced with a European country. Among them are Strawberries by Morocco's Laila Marrakchi and Words of Love by France's Rudi Rosenberg, both shown in Cannes' Un Certain Regard section.

Around the International Competition, the festival runs competitions for shorts, Arab cinema (Horizons of Arab Cinema), the International Critics' Week and documentaries. Out of competition, the programme includes the latest films by Andrey Zvyagintsev, Valeska Grisebach, Marie Kreutzer and Giuseppe Tornatore.

Three strands are of particular interest to travellers curious about the country:

• Egyptian Restored Classics: 27 films, including Youssef Chahine's One Day, the Nile and Tewfik Saleh's The Rebels, a chance to discover the golden age of Egyptian cinema on the big screen.
• Midnight Classics: midnight screenings, this year with Jacques Tourneur's Cat People and David Lynch's Lost Highway.
• Cairo Kids: a new section for young audiences.

Honorary Golden Pyramids go to Italy's Matteo Garrone, Mauritania's Abderrahmane Sissako, Egyptian director Saeed Shimi and Egyptian lyricist and composer Medhat El Adl.

Cairo in November

November is one of the best months for Cairo. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) normals give days of 19 to 25 °C average maximum from November to March, and cool nights: a jacket helps after an evening screening. Cairo is then 2 hours ahead of London.

The festival fits neatly into a stay: the pyramids and the Grand Egyptian Museum in the morning, when light and coolness are at their best, Historic Cairo in the late afternoon, cinema in the evening. The screening schedule and ticketing are published on the festival's official website.

Where to stay. For a stay built around the festival and evenings in town, Nile-side hotels are the most convenient: the Four Seasons Nile Plaza, in Garden City, or the Fairmont Nile City, on the corniche. To combine with the pyramids, Sabaro recommends two nights at the Marriott Mena House, in Giza, then two nights by the Nile.

What to combine with the festival

Autumn 2026 is busy in Cairo. The festival dates overlap with Forever Is Now, the contemporary art exhibition on the Giza Plateau from 4 to 28 November: you can see both on the same trip. The Grand Egyptian Museum, inaugurated on 1 November 2025, stays open until 9 pm on Wednesdays and Saturdays, a good evening before a late screening.