WHILE the conflict in the Middle East and North African region (MENA) continues to destroy lives, images of horrific violence, since last October, have preoccupied millions around the world as the crisis has spread and intensified from Gaza to Lebanon.

Just five hours driving from Gaza, the El Gouna Film Festival presented its 8th edition (October 24-November 1), showcasing an outstanding programme of quality film, bringing the best in cinema from the MENA region and beyond. 

The festival’s programme, while cherishing artistic values, also disrupts our easy, predictable understandings and makes us see things anew. Through screening, discussion, roundtable, exhibition, master classes, we observe today’s world as if for the first time.
 
Lebanese director Anas Zawahrti’s My Memory Is Full of Ghosts disrupts the simplification of the Syrian war found in Western media. This unconventional film talks about what is left of the city of Homs and its people; a visual elegy that explores a reality caught between past, present, and future. In the wrecked, destroyed neighbourhood, there is only agony and grief, a sense of absence, and apathy. A man sipping coffee says, “I am married to loneliness.”