After turning heads and winning hearts on its global festival tour, WHERE THE WIND COMES FROM, the stunning debut feature by Tunisian director Amel Guellaty, has just won the Gouna Star for Best Arab Narrative Film at the eighth El Gouna Film Festival.
After a celebrated international journey, the Gouna Star for Best Arab Narrative Film winner made its Arab World premiere in Gouna’s Feature Narrative Competition, earning a standing ovation and heartfelt reactions from the audience. Viewers were swept away by its mix of humor, emotion, and poetic storytelling, a beautiful ode to youth, freedom, and finding where you truly belong.
Cheers filled the red carpet as Amel Guellaty, Eya Bellagha, and the WHERE THE WIND COMES FROM team celebrated the win surrounded by familiar faces and festival stars. It was a full-circle moment for a film that has touched hearts since its very first screening, marking a night of joy, pride, and Tunisian cinema magic.
While receiving the award, Amel Guellaty expressed her gratitude, saying:
“I would like to thank the Gouna Film Festival. They supported this movie since pitching, then post-production, and now here in the closing.I’m really grateful for your support. Thank you to the jury. Thank you to my amazing actress. If you saw the movie, you saw how amazing she is. To my DOP, Frida Marzouk, and to the whole crew, my producer Asma Chiboub. She produced my first short and all my movies. She believed in me. I’m really honored. Thank you so much.”
The film follows 19-year-old Alyssa and shy 23-year-old Mehdi as they dream of escaping their reality. Upon discovering a contest offering a chance to flee, they embark on a road trip to southern Tunisia, overcoming several obstacles along the way.
Since its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in the US, WHERE THE WIND COMES FROM has been traveling across the globe, screening at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the Istanbul International Film Festival in Turkey, and the Malta Mediterranean Film Festival, where it won the Golden Bee for Best Feature Film and the Best Performance Award for Eya Bellagha.
The film also received the Nakheel Award for Best Feature Film at the Toronto Arab Film Festival in Canada before holding its Arab World premiere in the Feature Narrative Competition at the El Gouna Film Festival in Egypt.
The film is written and directed by Amel Guellaty and produced by Asma Chiboub, of Tunisia’s Atlas Vision. It stars Slim Baccar, Eya Bellagha, Sondos Belhassen, and Lobna Noomane. Cinematography is by Frida Marzouk, with editing by Amel Guellaty, Ghalya Lacroix, and Malek Kammoun. Music is composed by Omar Aloulou, and sound is by Aymen Labidi, with Arab distribution and sales handled by MAD Distribution.
Amel Guellaty, born in 1988, is a Tunisian director, screenwriter, and photographer who transitioned to cinema after studying law at the Sorbonne, working as an assistant on films such as APRÈS MAI by Olivier Assayas and FOREIGN BODY by Raja Amari.
She made her directorial debut in 2017 with BLACK MAMBA, which was selected for over 60 international festivals and won 20 awards and was later acquired by Canal+ and Italy’s RT Channel; her second short film, CHITANA (2022), received international acclaim, and she has also directed commercial campaigns for global brands including Dior, Montblanc, and IWC; WHERE THE WIND COMES FROM marks her first feature film.
