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The El Gouna Film Festival, in its second session, brought down the curtain on Friday evening at the tourist resort overlooking the Red Sea in eastern Egypt. A large number of stars participated in the closing ceremony, including American Owen Wilson, Egyptian Laila Elwi, Tunisian Hend Sabry, Jordanian Iyad Nassar, and Lebanese Carmen Bsaibes. The festival's grand prize went to the film “Imagined Land” from Singapore, while the El Gouna Silver Star for Feature Films at the festival went to the British film “Ray...and Liz” by director Richard Billingham, and the bronze went to the film “The Two Heiresses” by director Marcelo Martinezi from Paraguay. The Egyptian film “Yomeddine” by director Abu Bakr Shawky won the El Gouna Star Award for Best Arab Feature Film, and the jury awarded the Best Actress award to Polish Joanna Kulig for her role in the film “Cold War,” while the Tunisian Mohamed Zarif was awarded the Best Actor Award for his role in the film “My Son.” In the short film competition, which included 23 films, the Colombian film “Our War Song” by director Juanita Unzaga won the El Gouna Golden Star, and the Filipino film “Judgment” by director Raymond Ripa Gutierrez won the El Gouna Silver Star, while the Tunisian film “Watermelon Sheikh” by director Kaouther Ben Hania won the Bronze Star of El Gouna. In the feature documentary competition, the El Gouna Golden Star award was won by the film “Watercolors” by Russian director Viktor Kosakovsky, while the film “On Fathers and Sons” by Syrian director Talal Derki won the Silver Star and Best Arab Documentary Film awards. Derki says, “I was worried about the reaction of the Arab audience because the film presents a very sensitive topic, such as the authority of the father, the absence of women, jihad, religion, and more big questions.” The film “The Swing” by Lebanese director Cyril Aris won the Bronze Star Award. For more on Euronews: Did directors from the Kingdom of Morocco really boycott the Haifa Film Festival? A film that tells the story of a Syrian refugee is nominated for an Oscar 2019 Sharjah gifts the children of the Emirates 138 international films at the Children’s Cinema Festival At the closing ceremony, the festival honored American actor Sylvester Stallone by giving him the “Creative Achievement Award,” which is the same award that the festival gave to two others at the opening: Tunisian producer Dora Bouchoucha and Egyptian director Daoud Abdel Sayed. Festival Director, Intishal Al-Tamimi, said in his closing speech, “The activities of the second session of our festival have ended, but for the festival team, or at least a part of it, it is a starting point for preparing for the next session.” He added, "As we are on the cusp of the third session, we are aware that the festival must consolidate and deepen every activity it undertakes and search for everything new so that the next session will be stronger and more brilliant and the festival will continue to maintain this brilliance."