Sherif Sadek Wins Best Director of a Short Documentary, From Queens to Cairo, at Madrid International Film Festival 0

July 12, 2013, Madrid, Spain Akhnaton Films (www.akhnatonfilms.com) announced today that Sherif Sadek took top honors as Best Director of a Short Documentary at the Madrid International Film Festival (July 1 6, 2013) for his award-winning documentary, From Queens to Cairo. (www.madridinternationalfilmfestival.com)

Nominations, Awards and Screenings:

Screening at the San Antonio Film Festival, June 2013, in San Antonio, TX (www.safilm.com).

Official selection and screening in the Egyptian Works program at the 16th annual Ismailia International Film Festival in Ismailia, Egypt, June 2013.

Winner of Best Feature Documentary at the Queens World Film Festival, in Queens, NY, March 2013 (www.queensworldfilmfestival.com).

Official Selection at the Rainier Independent Film Festival, Mount Rainier, WA, May 2013. (www.rainierfilmfest.com)

Featured on Indiewire as Project of the Day (http://www.indiewire.com/article/project-of-the-day-a-documentary-filmma...).

This informative and insightful documentary follows Egyptian-American filmmaker Sherif Sadek as he returns to his native Cairo with his family one year after the start of the Egyptian Revolution. With misinformation rampant in the global media, Sadek is determined to see for himself how Egyptians will navigate the bumpy road to democracy after decades of authoritarianism. His journey takes him from famed Tahrir Square to the inside of taxi cabs to rallies and slums as he searches for perspectives from all walks of life. (www.imdb.com/title/tt2580398/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)

Sherif Sadek, Akhnaton Films (www.akhnatonfilms.com)

Sadek stated, The growing interest in this documentary by the global community is incredibly heart warming because as an American Egyptian, making this film is very personal to me. At the same time, I feel guilty for capitalizing on the deaths of our Egyptian martyrs, but I also feel the need to share their story of heroism as they fight for their freedom with the world watching. And now with Mohamed Morsi deposed, the battle continues. In the West, we think of freedom as a theoretical concept, but in Egypt, these citizens -- and many are youths -- are standing in the streets with their chests open to bullets as they strive to bring freedom to their country. Think about this for a minute.

Sadek added, I accepted this award in honor of ASSIMILATE, who supported me while making this film, whether by making the awesome SCRATCH DI software that helped shape the story and preserve the realistic look of day-to-day events, or by morally supporting me in my two trips abroad to attend screenings at festivals.

Production:

Sadek shot From Queens to Cairo with a Nikon D7000 HDSLR. He then used ASSIMILATE's SCRATCH DI tools to do the conforming and turned to Jason Crump at Metropolis Post (www.metpostny.com) for the color grading in SCRATCH. Sadek was able to do the finishing himself, using the SCRATCH Finishing software. Sadek notes, I work with SCRATCH every day in a technical support role for ASSIMILATE, but to experience its ease-of-use and powerful tool set as a user, gave me even greater appreciation for the craft and creativity of post-production artists.

Quotes from the industry:

Don Cato, curator of the Queens World Film Festival 2013, gave high marks to Sadek's documentary, stating, What at first seemed ordinary, quickly turned to an unflinching drama, drawing a line between pyramids and poverty, Cairo and New York, a peoples movement for freedom and the reactions of his children. It's a very, very fine piece of work!

When I saw this [film] at the Queens World Film Festival this year, it brought tears to my eyes, said Faiyaz Jafri, award-winning NYC filmmaker and artist (www.bam-b.com).

LINK:	http://www.assimilateinc.com/media/news-press/sherif-sadek-wins-best-d...
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