All the Awards given during the Closing Night of Middle East Now, on October 15th at Cinema La Compagnia:
_ “Middle East Now Audience Award 2023”, best film voted by the audience to
A GAZA WEEKEND (Palestine, United Kingdom, 2022) by Basil Khalil
_ “Premio Cinema Iran-Afghanistan Felicetta Ferraro 2023” [Best Film from Iran-Afghanistan in memory of Felicetta Ferraro] to
THE ETILAAT ROZ (Afghanistan, 2022) by Abbas Rezaie
_ “Best OFF Award” for the best author short film awarded by OFF Cinema to
FATHERLAND (Denmark, UK, Syria) by Benjamin Kodboel
In addition, OFF Cinema awarded the “Best OFF Special Mention” to
THE RETURN by Fatemeh Marzbani (Kurdistan, Iran, 2023)
_ “BEST SHORT Staff Award 2023″ to the best short film given by the Festival Staff to
YELLOW (Afghanistan, UK, 2023) by Elham Ehsas
The “Middle East Now Audience Award 2023”, given to the most voted film by the audience at this edition, went to A GAZA WEEKEND (Palestine, United Kingdom, 2022) by Basil Khalil, the first feature film by the Palestinian-British director, that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival winning the FIPRESCI award from the international press. “A Gaza Weekend”, Opening Film at this edition, was welcomed with a great, emotional and empathetic final applause, and also the second screening at the Cinema Astra was a sold out event with great reception by the audience.
The “Premio Cinema Iran-Afghanistan Felicetta Ferraro 2023” [Best Film from Iran-Afghanistan in memory of Felicetta Ferraro] went to THE ETILAAT ROZ (Afghanistan, 2022) by Abbas Rezaie, a documentary that immersed the audience in the headquarters of Etilaat Roz, the most important independent Afghan newspaper in the aftermath of the return of the Taliban in 2021.
“For the value of precious and irreplaceable testimony with which the film retraces the personal and collective drama of the staff of journalists of an editorial team which, in the aftermath of the Taliban’s return to power, is forced to take note of the crumbling of the minimum conditions of freedom to operate and offer a service to the country. Behind the “white flag” hoisted before the flight abroad of a large part of Etilaat Roz’s staff emerges the dignity of men and women who have written important pages in the history of Afghanistan that no one, not even by force, will be able to erase.”
_ The “Best OFF Award” for the best author short film awarded by OFF Cinema, association based in Florence that promotes short films for their innovative approach and social message, went to FATHERLAND (Denmark, UK, Syria) by Benjamin Kodboel.
“A short documentary that beautifully captures the idiosyncrasies and absurd anguish of the asylum process for a Syrian refugee family in Denmark. A humanizing story, without falling into sentimentality, which offers an urgent and lucid look at a Europe full of promises and at the same time increasingly less empathetic towards migratory paths”.
Furthermore, OFF Cinema awarded the “Best OFF Special Mention” to an ethnographic film full of poetry and beauty, THE RETURN by Fatemeh Marzbani (Kurdistan, Iran, 2023), “which captures the daily life of Ata Tazik, a former smuggler turned fisherman , with a look that does not try to explain or judge, but simply shows us a reality contained in the final sentences of the film: the world we live in is full of wonders, if we want to know it more deeply, a good way of doing it it’s simply observing it.”
Finally, the “BEST SHORT Staff Award 2023″ for the best short film given by the festival staff went to YELLOW (Afghanistan, UK, 2023) by Elham Ehsas.
“For the emotional and cultural significance of the meeting that takes place between the two protagonists. For the value attributed to colors, to express emancipation and freedom of expression, for the delicate and poetic representation of a tradition that oppresses and divides (wearing the veil), for the sensitivity and closeness that the other gender ( i.e. the male one) manages to express through a simple look or gesture, to deal with a drama with profound poetry”