The Lifetime Achievement Award was awarded this year to the Palestinian director Mai Masri who “has recreated Palestine through cinema”, with great commitment, making sense of the uprooting of the Palestinian people and countering the dominant narrative. Mai Masri’s work creates connections between memory, imagination and identity, reproducing the realities of exile and occupation through the eyes of the people.
The Echo of the Camp Award was given to the film Without waves by Wisam Al Jafari , because in just 8 minutes, his film represents life in the refugee camps in an original manner, he effectively uses, with also a certain degree of irony, sounds and images typical of the everyday life in the camps.
The Associazione Amicizia Sardegna Palestina Award goes to the film Mirrors of Diaspora by Iraqi director Kasim Abid for how he was able to tell the recent history of Iraq, mirroring it (and mirroring himself) in the history of seven Iraqi artists in exile and creating a wise and harmonious composition of political life and art.
The jury composed of Monica Maurer, Antonello Zanda, Ibrahim Nasrallah, Patrizia Manduchi, Wasim Dahmash, decided to assign:
the Al ARD Award for Best Documentary to the film You come from far away by Amal Ramsis, for this research into the past was made with great efforts and great technical expertise. It is the story of the Palestinian writer Najati Sidqi and his participation in the liberation movement of the peoples, before the Nakba – and of her family’s diaspora. A story of the Palestinian people, who refuses to be “neutral” in the face of the injustice that affects other peoples, a people always interested in what is happening in the world, even if it continues to suffer.
The Award for Best Documentary on Palestine was awarded to Ahmed Nasser Barghouthi’s Five Minutes , because the film shows in an effective, concise but yet engaging manner, how Israel implements the destruction by air bombing of Palestinian civilian homes in the Gaza Strip. Such destruction, a war crime for international conventions, is common practice. The documentary focuses on the devastating impact on the inhabitants, mostly children, as well as on the entire community.
the Award for Emerging Directors was instead awarded to Razan. A track of a butterfly (Razan, a butterfly track) by Hanan Alastal and Iyad Alastal , as the film tells touchingly and convincingly the pain of the mother of the young volunteer nurse killed by Israeli snipers in Gaza during the “Great March of Return”. The two directors join Razan’s mother in various situations and she shows her ability to transform pain into the will to continue on the path of her murdered daughter.
The Jury also decided to assign a Special Mention to the film Farming under fire by Matthew Cassel , because the documentary shows the work of young unemployed graduates who, under the fire of Israeli snipers, risk their lives to bring home pocket change and collect onions.
A Special Mention also went to Broken. A Palerstinian Journey through International Law by Mohammed Alatar as the film accurately documents the ongoing Israeli violation of international laws, UN resolutions and the verdicts of the International Court of Justice, exemplified by the verdict on the apartheid wall. The documentation attests to a long research work that also highlights the motivations of the judges of the International Court.
Broken. A Palerstinian Journey through International Law by Mohammed Alatar also won the Audience Award.