The award will honour the contributions the actor has made to Egyptian cinema across his two-decade career.
Egyptian actor Karim Abdel Aziz will receive the prestigious Faten Hamama Award for Excellence at this year’s Cairo International Film Festival.
The CIFF 43rd edition is scheduled to take place from November 26 to December 5.
Abdel Aziz described this honour as a turning point in his artistic career, which started from the film Edhak Al-Soura Tetlaa Hilwa, and the actor has been releasing films on an almost annual basis ever since. His most recent works include the 2021 hit action series Al Ikhtiyar 2 (The Choice 2), which was released during Ramadan.
The award will honour the contributions the actor has made to Egyptian cinema across his two-decade career, often taking what festival organisers called “bold choices”.
His most notable works include 2014’s Al Fil Al Azraq (The Blue Elephant), a horror mystery based on the novel by Ahmed Mourad, the 2011 thriller Fasel wa Na’ood (We’ll Return after a Break) and the 1999 comedy Aboud Ala El Hedoud (Aboud on the Border).
Festival President Mohamed Hefzy said: “The festival is always keen to honour the figures who combine talent, popularity, devotion to cinema, and this applies to the star Karim Abdel Aziz, who will be awarded the Faten Hamama Award for Excellence. I respected Karim Abdel Aziz throughout 20 years of success in a career in which he played roles in comedies, action, thrillers, horror and romance. He managed to succeed and sometimes surprise us with his bold choices. It is not by coincidence that he is among the highest-earning movie stars in the history of Egyptian cinema without having to follow the guaranteed pattern of the film market.”
Abdel Aziz said he was honoured to receive an award that bears the name of legendary actress Faten Hamama – a luminary in the industry during the 1950s and 1960s, a time often referred as the beginning of the golden age in Egyptian cinema.
Abdel Aziz said the award took him back to the beginning of his career, when he yearned to be invited to the festival. It was an honour, he said, to be attending as an award winner in November.
