‘I Promise You Paradise’ becomes first Egyptian film to win Rail d’Or Award at Cannes

Broadcast Pro ○ 26 May 2023

---

Written by Mostafa and Sawsan Yusuf, the film features Kenyi Marcellino and Kenzy Mohamed.

I Promise You Paradise (Eissa), by Morad Mostafa, has become the first Egyptian film to win the Rail d’Or Award at Cannes Film Festival’s Critics Week. The award is voted by a jury of 100 members and film critics.

I Promise You Paradise (Egypt, France, Qatar/2023), starring Kenyi Marcellino and Kenzi Mohamed, is a short film about Eissa, a young illegal African migrant in Egypt in a quest against time to save his loved ones.

The film is an Egyptian-French joint production between Bonanza Films, producer Sawsan Youssef, French producer Margot Laurier, Red Star, Sea Cinema, Shift Studios, and Film Clinic. I Promise You Paradise is distributed internationally by H264.

In a statement posted on the Critics’ Week website, Ava Cahen, Director of Critics Week introduced the Egyptian film: “A freedom — in its many forms, freedom to love, to come and go and to exist even — is at the very core of the intense and yet contemplative quest of the protagonist in Morad Mostafa’s I Promise You Paradise.