Elgouna Film Festival
Creative Strategy & Marketing Manager - El Gouna Film Festival
Al Gabalayah, Cairo Governorate•Contract
About the Job
In short:
- Reposition the festival. Work with the Marketing Director and top-level management to balance GFF's public identity from red-carpet spectacle to serious cultural institution, one defined by the films it selects and the conversations they spark, not only by who walks the carpet.
- Own the creative vision. Lead this year's rebrand, with Instagram as the primary focus.
- Set the bar. Commission and direct in-house content creators, designers and editors through reference-led briefs and hold every piece of public-facing work to an exacting standard.
About the Role:
El Gouna Film Festival's public presence skews toward spectacle — red carpet, celebrity arrivals, glamour. While that image has its place, it is crowding out something more valuable: the perception of GFF as a serious cultural institution whose selections matter, whose conversations last, and whose identity is defined by the films as well as the people who attend them.
We are looking for someone to own that shift. This is a creative strategy role. The person who fills it will be the aesthetic and editorial authority for how GFF presents itself to the world, with Instagram as the primary channel and proving ground.
We are looking for someone to own that shift. This is a creative strategy role. The person who fills it will be the aesthetic and editorial authority for how GFF presents itself to the world, with Instagram as the primary channel and proving ground.
The Festival Director brings deep strategic and institutional experience. This role is its creative counterpart: the person who supplies the vision and taste to translate institutional strategy into work that is original, refined, culturally resonant, and editorially coherent.
Main Responsibilities:
- Lead this year's rebrand (priority) Own the creative vision for the festival's brand refresh. Manage the appointed agency end to end - write the brief, set direction, review and challenge their work. Align internal stakeholders around the new identity and translate it into a working system across Instagram, wider channels, on-site, and brand guidelines.
- Brand identity & creative direction Define and document the festival's visual identity: photography direction, colour, typography, grid logic, and editorial rules. Act as brand guardian across all public-facing output - website, press kit, key art, partner decks, signage - holding internal and external work to the same standard.
- Instagram & channel strategy Lead the creative strategy for the festival's Instagram: what is posted, how it looks, what it says, and what it doesn't. Define the content mix as concrete proportions, review and approve content during the festival, and audit the channel off-season to keep it coherent. The profile should read as a cultural institution within seconds.
- Commissioning & creative direction Write photography and video briefs with reference decks, not just descriptions. Select and direct the photographers, videographers, designers, and editors who produce festival content. Brief and manage external creatives for graphics, trailers, recap videos, and key art - and send work back when it doesn't meet the bar. Build a trusted regional creative roster.
- Editorial calendar & content Build and run a 12-month editorial calendar that keeps the festival's voice active between editions - filmmaker spotlights, alumni releases, archival selections, industry conversations. Develop recurring series with a defined look and cadence. Write and edit copy, or direct whoever does, so the brand speaks in one consistent, considered voice.
- Campaign planning & festival delivery: Lead the creative for key announcement beats - programme reveal, jury, opening, awards. Coordinate with Programming to secure film stills, filmmaker access, and selection rationale early enough to build genuine content around them.
- Audience development: Identify the audiences whose attention would confer cultural credibility - critics, programmers, cultural institutions, international press - and develop tailored creative approaches for each. Integrate audience-development priorities into editorial planning rather than treating reach as an afterthought.
- Coordination, sponsorship & reporting: Act as creative point of contact for artistic and institutional partners. Ensure sponsor visibility commitments are implemented accurately. Report on reach and audience growth among the audiences that matter, and present campaign evaluations to the Director.
Person Specification:
Essential:
Essential:
- A background in creative strategy, brand direction, or editorial direction — ideally formed where the creative work itself was the primary value: a creative agency, cultural institution, media brand, or design-led company
- Demonstrable experience repositioning a brand through sustained creative output, not a single campaign
- Significant experience leading creative and editorial strategy for Instagram specifically
- Experience commissioning and directing photographers, videographers, designers, and editors with reference-led briefs
- Exceptional visual taste: refined instincts about photography, typography, colour, and composition
- Excellent writing and editing; treats copy as part of the creative work.
- Working proficiency in Arabic and English.
Desirable:
- A genuine point of view on cinema, art, and cultural production
- Knowledge of the regional and international film-festival landscape
- Familiarity with the cultural and media context of the Arab world and the wider international arts scene
What Success Looks Like in Year One:
GFF's Instagram is visually and editorially distinctive - considered photography, a genuine voice, a content mix that reflects what a film festival actually is - reaching and engaging more heavily with film-industry professionals, critics, and cultural institutions. The social media also reflects our overall positioning: showcasing the best of Arab cinema, past, present and up-and-coming. Press coverage reflects curatorial seriousness, not only attendees.
About Elgouna Film Festival
El Gouna Film Festival, founded in 2017, is one of the leading festivals in the MENA region. GFF aims to showcase a wide variety of films for a passionate and knowledgeable audience, while fostering better communication between cultures through the art of filmmaking. Its goal is to connect filmmakers from the region with their international counterparts in the spirit of cooperation and cultural exchange. The festival is committed to the discovery of new voices and strives to be a catalyst for the development of cinema in the Arab world, especially through its industry arm CineGouna Platform.