Cairo Film Festival, First Festival to Present Environmental Award

Published November 11th, 2000 - 03:00 GMT

The Cairo Film Festival’s administration has announced that it is the first ever festival, this year, to present a special environmental Award.

According to Agence France Presse, the festival’s chairman, Hussein Fahmi and the Egyptian Minister of Environment, Nadia Mukaram Ebeid have jointly announced that an Indian film Mawt Fil Masna’a, directed by Tbeerz Nourani, has won this year’s Environment Award, comprised of a statue of silver tree leaf.

During the award presenting ceremony, Fahmi said “the festival will take upon itself, in its coming years, to conduct competitions related to the environment and its protection.”

He added that in order to show the festival’s dedication to this issue, “we have used environmentally safe lighting this year and will do so ever year hereafter.”

On her part, Mukaram said, “It is very important to deepen environmental awareness through the film industry, especially in Egypt, which suffers from various environmental problems and needs the efforts of every sector.”

As for the film that won the award, it depicts the story of the true story of the ‘Pupal Chemical Factory’ disaster, which a couple of years ago resulted in the death of tens of workers and residents of the area.

The incident was the largest environmental disaster ever in India. – Albawaba.com.