Ibrahim El-Batout

Ibrahim El-Batout, who was born on the 20th of September, 1963 in Portsaid, is a graduate of the American University in Cairo in 1985, majoring in Physics. El Batout's infatuation with the camera started in the Video Cairo Production House, an agency that provides facilities for foreign TV-stations. There, he worked as a sound engineer. Shortly after, El Batout began to experiment with filmmaking and learned about the skills required of cameramen, editors and directors. Later, he worked for a year at a British television station called TV-Am, located in Cyprus. Since then, he has worked as a director, producer and cameraman, capturing stories mainly about human loss, suffering, and displacement since 1987, and has also directed numerous documentaries for international TV channels, such as ZDF (Germany), TBS (Japan) and ARTE (France). El Batout documentary work has received numerous international awards, such as : the Axel Springer Award in Germany (1994 and 2000) and the Direct Marketing Association's coveted ECHO award (1996). Towards the beginning of 2004, El Batout stepped into the world of fiction to make the long feature film 'Ithaki' (2005). His second feature film 'Ein Shams' (Eye of the Sun) (2008) has won the Golden Bull, the top prize at the 54th Taormina Film Festival, 2008. In 2010, El Batout's third feature film Hawi won the best Arab Film Award at the 2nd Doha Tribeca Film Festival, and will have its international premiere at the 40th International Film Festival Rotterdam January/February 2011.