After accusations of extremism, racism and bloodyness, it affected the new technical director of the Cairo International Film Festival, Ahmed Shawky, and the occurrence of major media confrontations on social networking sites, and amounted to scandals, due to previous statements by Shawki, regarding the Egyptian Al-Ahly Club. The latter submitted his resignation from his post, knowing that the new session of the festival is supposed to be held next November.
The festival’s higher advisory committee held a meeting in which the submitted resignation was accepted, and the Cairo Festival issued an official statement in which it said: “The festival’s productive president and scriptwriter, Mohamed Hefzy, and members of the higher advisory committee would like to thank Mr. Shawky for what he presented to the festival during his previous sessions.”
The festival confirms its commitment to continue preparing for the 42nd session, some of which will be announced in the coming weeks, while continuing to adhere to the festival's principles and values, such as pluralism and communication of cultures, highlighting new cinematic voices, providing a platform for cinematic talent around the world, and contributing to the development of industry Local and regional cinema.
The crisis started after the Minister of Culture, Dr. Enas Abdel Dayem, decided to appoint Ahmed Shawky as the artistic director of the festival, succeeding the late critic, Youssef Sharif Rizkallah, whom Shawky was his assistant for the past four years, and the reason for the attack on Ahmed Shawky is the emergence of old publications that he published on "Facebook", six years ago, and some described these publications as inciting blood, violence, extremism and ridicule from the victims of Al-Ahly Club, who described them with immoral descriptions, following the massacre of the "Port Said Stadium", which killed more than 70 fans from Al-Ahly's audience, and formed This reality is a painful wound for the Egyptian memory.
Although Ahmed Shawky apologized in an official statement for his publications, the apology was not enough to solve the crisis to contain the problem.