Biografia
Sherif Elbendary, an Egyptian film director, writer, and producer, was born in 1978 in Cairo. He graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts in 2001 and initially worked as a textile engineer. In 2002, he shifted his career path by enrolling at the High Cinema Institute in Cairo to study film directing, graduating in 2007. Since 2008, he has held a teaching position there. Elbendary has directed several shorts and documentaries that have been featured in numerous international festivals. His first short film, "Rise and Shine," produced by the National Film Center in 2006, was selected for many international festivals and won several awards, including at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2007. In 2011, he directed the feature-length documentary "On the Road to Downtown." He also contributed the "Curfew" segment to the feature film "18 Days," which was an official selection at Cannes 2011 alongside nine other directors. Elbendary won the Robert Bosch Film Prize at the Berlinale Talent Campus in 2014 for his short film "Dry Hot Summer," an Egyptian-German co-production. The film premiered at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in 2016 and was screened at numerous festivals worldwide, winning multiple awards. In 2017, he released his first feature-length narrative film, "Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim," an Egyptian-Emirati-French co-production that won a Best Actor award at the Dubai International Film Festival and was released in Egypt, France, and other countries. That same year, Elbendary directed the TV series "The Brotherhood II," written by veteran screenwriter Wahid Hamed. The historical production, with political themes, sparked controversy at the time. Elbendary has served as a jury member at several film festivals, including Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Cairo International Film Festival, El Gouna Film Festival, Ismailia Film Festival, and the Egyptian National Film Festival. Recently, he founded Africa Films, a production company focused on short and feature films by promising emerging directors making their first or second films, and it will also produce his second feature film.
