India is the guest of honour at the 33rd Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), which opened here with the screening of John Abraham-Katrina Kaif starrer Hindi film 'New York'.

The festival was jointly inaugurated by the Egyptian Minister of Culture, H E Farouk Hosni and Indian Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Raghu Menon, last night.

Around 25 Indian films will be screened during the 10-day-long festival, which will also organise a retrospective of the films by Indian director Madhur Bhandarkar.

More than 30 leading Indian films personalities are expected to grace the festival red carpet. Some of the big names being legendary filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, who is also the chairperson of the international jury, actress Sridevi and her producer husband Boney Kapoor, director Madhur Bhandarkar, 'Slumdog Millionaire' star Irrfan Khan and writer Vikas Swarup, Kabir Khan, Jai Tank and Krishna Seshadri Gomatam.

Indian film 'Madholal keep Walking' by Jai Tank is in the competition section of the CIFF while 'Mudhal, Mudhal, Mudhal Varai (First Time)' by Krishna Seshadri Gomatam has been selected in the digital section.

The three main competitions in the CIFF are main competition, competition for digital movies and the Arab movies competition. The number of participating movies in each section is: 17, 14 and 11 respectively.

One of the oldest film festival in the Middle East, the CIFF will screen around 150 movies from 67 countries.