Giant star Amir El Masry, The Voice of Hind Rajab filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, Egyptian screen icon Lebleba and Saudi actor Yaqoub Alfarhan are set for the In Conversation talk series at the 5th Red Sea International Film Festival.
The festival says the In Conversation series “sees global filmmakers and actors sharing their stories and revealing their successes and challenges along the path that led them to taking the stage at RSIFF.”
Egyptian-British actor El Masry stars as “Prince” Naseem Hamed in the boxing biopic Giant, the Jeddah, Saudi Arabia-based festival’s opening film. The Cairo-born El Masry, a graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, made his breakthrough in the BBC/AMC series The Night Manager (2016), and has also appeared in the features Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) and A Haunting in Venice (2023), as well as TV shows including Netflix’s The Crown (2022), where he played a young Mohamed Al Fayed, the BBC’s Vigil (2023) and the BBC’s Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (2024). El Masry won an BAFTA Scotland award for best actor for his performance in Limbo (2021).
Ben Hania is one of Africa’s best known filmmakers. The Tunisian writer-director has enjoyed a string of successes, including having three of her films selected as Tunisia’s entry for the best international film category at the Academy Awards. Ben Hania’s harrowing 2017 drama Beauty and the Dogs was selected in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section, and her 2024 documentary Four Daughters competed for the Palme d’Or in Cannes. The latter would go on to win a Cesar award for best documentary film. Her latest film, The Voice of Hind Rajab, a docudrama about the horrific killing of 5-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab by the IDF, premiered at the Venice Film Festival this year, and received a 21-minute standing ovation. The film would go on to win the Grand Jury Silver Lion prize in Venice and the best film prize at the San Sebastien Film Festival.
Lebleba, the stage name of Egyptian film legend and singer Ninochka Manoug Kupelian, has been a star in the Arab world for eight decades. From her early days as a child actress in the mid-1950s, Lebleba has starred in almost 100 films and countless TV shows. She has worked with all the most important Egyptian filmmakers including Youssef Chahine, Zuhair Bekeer, Hassan El Emam and Atef El Tayebe.
Saudi actor Alfarhan has rapidly grown in prominence on both stage and screen. He has starred in several notable stage productions, including Quick Meal, Secret of Life, The Lucky One and Second Symphony. His television work features appearances in popular series such as Between You and Me, Women’s Play Is a Man and Girls’ Extension. On film, he starred in Tawfik Alzaidi’s Norah (2023), the first film shot entirely in Alula, which premiered at RSIFF in 2023, and was also selected for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section in 2024. He also stars in Hussam Alhulwah’s Al-Gaid (2025).
RSIFF runs from Dec. 4-11.
