Films directed by a Palestinian and a Russian claimed the two most lucrative prizes on Saturday as the final curtain fell on Abu Dhabi s Middle East International Film Festival.
Palestinian director Elia Suleiman s The Time That Remains, about the emotional and humorous lives of Israeli Arabs in Nazareth, the director s home town, won the Black Pearl Award for best Middle Eastern film.
The Arab public has changed a lot since my first film, Suleiman said after accepting the award from Hollywood star Orlando Bloom, referring to his 1996 movie Chronicle of a Disappearance.
It accepts the humor in my films and the younger generation is less influenced by ideologies and want more freedom and democracy, he told AFP.
The award featured $100,000 in prize money, an amount equaled by that for best overall film, which was won by Hipsters directed by Russia s Valery Todorovsky.
Hipsters portrays the lives of Soviet-era youths who embraced American music as a means of their struggle against the totalitarian regime of the now defunct USSR.
The award for best actress was shared by Alicia Laguna and Sonia Couoh for the Mexican film “Northless while the best actor award went to Hamed Behdad for the Iranian film “Nobody Knows about the Persian Cats.
Orhan Eskikoy won the best Middle East documentary award for “On the Way to School. The best Middle East narrative director prize went to Turkish filmmaker Pelin Esmer for “10 to 11.
Young Egyptian director Ayten Amin was given a special jury mention for her short narrative “Spring ’89 along with Franny Armstrong’s documentary feature “The Age of Stupid, starring Pete Postlethwaite, and a host of short films from Ireland, Palestine, Argentina and the US.
Eighteen films had been entered to compete in the Middle East International Film Festival featured. The jury was chaired by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami.
Total prize money at the festival was $1 million.
Most of the films included in the feature-length documentaries will be the first such time they are screened either in the Middle East or globally.
Hollywood stars Orlando Bloom, Naomi Watts and Eva Mendes graced the third edition’s closing ceremony. The festival closed with Grant Heslov’s war comedy “The Men Who Stare at Goats starring George Clooney and Ewan McGregor. -AFP and additional reporting by Daily News Egypt
