Egypt Picks 'The Stories' for Best International Feature Oscar — SkimNews
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- Egypt selected Abu Bakr Shawky's drama 'The Stories' as its entry in the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards.
- Amir El-Masry stars as an aspiring Egyptian concert pianist who connects with Austrian girl Valerie Pachner through a 1967 pen pal scheme that deepens into romance, in a film set against Egypt's turbulent years from the late 1960s through the 1980s.
- 'The Stories' world premiered at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in 2025, won the Golden Tanit for Best Film at the Carthage Film Festival, and screened at the Red Sea International Film Festival last December.
- Director Abu Bakr Shawky based the film on the true story of how his own parents met; it is his third feature after 'Yomeddine,' which competed at Cannes in 2018, and the Saudi-set camel race drama 'Hajjan.'
- The ensemble cast also includes Nelly Karim, Ahmed Kamal, Karim Kassem, Sabry Fawaz, Sherif El Dessouky, Khaled Mokhtar, Ahmed El Azaar, and Amr Abed.
- The film is produced by Cinenovo, Film Clinic, Lagoonie Film Production, Film Square, Shofha Productions, Film AG, Fox in the Snow, and Wrong Men.
Why it matters: For El-Masry, a British-Egyptian actor building a transatlantic career (Giant, MobLand), an Oscar submission for Egypt could raise his profile in international awards conversations. The film's decade-spanning backdrop of late-1960s through 1980s Egypt and its basis in the director's family history position it as a personal-political story, not merely the transcontinental romance the plot summary suggests.
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