**#9 Egypt Oscar entry Yomeddine gets North American distribution agreement: Egypt’s entry for best foreign-language film at the upcoming Academy Awards is heading to cinemas in the US and Canada, according to an exclusive from Variety, which writes, “Strand Releasing has acquired all North American rights for A.B. Shawky’s road comedy ‘Yomeddine’ from CAA and Wild Bunch.” The film vied for the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the François Chalais Prize. Directed by first-time Egyptian-Austrian filmmaker Abu Bakr Shawky, Yomeddine follows the story of a leper who goes on a quest to find his family, which had left him in a leper colony as a child with unfulfilled promises to return. Yomeddine is meant to “tell the story of the underdog, the outsider, the labeled ‘nobody’ who grows to understand the workings of a world that refuses to accept him,” first-time Egyptian-Austrian filmmaker Abu Bakr hawky said of his work (pdf). You can catch the trailer here (watch, runtime: 5:04).