Film Critic / Programmer / Script consultant
Senior programmer in El Gouna Film Festival and a film critic. He’s been writing film reviews and studies starting 2015, before he began his career in festival programming through Cairo International Film festival. Since 2016 he has held many positions in different international festivals, including artistic director of Cairo International Film Festival, artistic director of Ismailia International Film Festival, delegate for Egypt for Film O’Clock Festival. Outside Egypt, Mohsen has been the main curator for the European Film Festival in Riyadh (2023), and he’s a consultant for Hollywood Arab Film Festival. Besides, he acted as a jury member in many important festivals, including: CPH:DOX, Tangier National Film Festival, and El Gouna Film Festival. He’s also working as the content strategy manager in Arabia Pictures Entertainment company.
Curatorial text:
The photo from Novacestii reminded me of the old Arab warriors as they were drawn in the old paintings, same beard and clothes. As I have something for classics, I always love to watch the old animations, and follow the history of how this art developed over years. It’s not common to find more animated films outside the USA and Japan, so it’s good to discover hidden gems for Europe. The camera film strips contribute the classic memoirs of mine, I was lucky to witness the transformation from the old film strips to the digital. I remember how valuable these strips were, and how it should be handled carefully. Owning a camera was something huge, that’s way the films and photos were valuable, which is the same case nowadays as almost everyone owns a camera, even if he didn’t ask for one.
This film reel was one of the closest items I found related to The Suspense as it was originally introduced and developed in this form. It also reminded me of one the greatest films by Hitchock, Rope (1948). In this film he tried to deliver a film of one long shot, but as the film reels had a certain length by that time, he had to find some way to cut without the audience noticing that there was a cut. As for the costume, this black pullover and dark striped scarf, suits an anonymous person who wants not to be noticed while putting his crime into action. I was lucky to watch Mo (2019), although it’s not a usual suspense film, the 3rd act is pure suspense.
As I mentioned that The Hi-story of cinema gave me an impression of film festival posters, I found the Award very related to this idea. It’s interesting how each statue of these becomes very valuable if it’s connected to one of the big festivals, and by time it becomes a symbol of the entire festival. To complete this festival(ish) image, of course we need a catalog and publications. I consider myself from the old school that prefers printed materials over digital ones. With all respect to the environment of course, but I feel these printed materials live longer than the digital ones, as the latter is easily forgotten among other files, and you cannot feel the real value of it, which is not the case in the printed ones.