Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival Director Abbas Arnaout (sixth left) with jury members at the awards ceremony at the Doha Sheraton yesterday. German films dominated this year’s awards. (Salim Matramkot)
BY RAYNALD C RIVERA
DOHA: German films dominated this year’s Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival winning Aljazeera Golden Award and Jury Award both in Long films category at the awards ceremony held at Doha Sheraton last night.
The Turtle’s Rage, a film about a Palestinian’s failed attempt to return to his country, won the prestigious Aljazeera Golden Award for Long Films category.
Directed by Pary El Qalqili, the film, which also won the Muhr Arab Documentary for best film at the recent Dubai International Film Festival, tells about the director’s father who leaves his family in Berlin to return to Palestine to fight for his country, however, is expelled by Israel after 10 years. On his return, he stays in the basement ‘like a turtle tucked away in his shell.’
The film upstaged 22 others in the category to bag the QR50,000 prize and a golden trophy bearing the Aljazeera logo handed by Festival Director Abbas Arnaout to El Qalqili.
Directed by German filmmaker Fabian Daub, Rosia Montana, Town on the Brink received the Jury Award for Long films category.
It is about the people’s fight against the destruction of their town by a Canadian corporation.
Aljazeera Golden Award for Medium and Short films category was bagged by Red Wedding (Cambodia) and Letters from Pyongyang (Canada).
Other Aljazeera Jury Award winners were Black Out (Austria) and The Korean Dream (Nepal) in the medium and short films categories, respectively.
For the Public Liberties and Human Rights Award the winners were Wooden Rifle, In Utero Srebrenica and On the Double for the Long, Medium and Short films categories respectively.
Aljazeera Children’s Channel-sponsored Child and Family Matters Award was given to The Human Scale, When the Boys Return and A Separation.
Aljazeera Documentary Channel Award given to the best three Arabic documentaries under the Short, Medium and Long categories not produced by Aljazeera Network was won by Words of Witness, Eyes of Freedom Street of Death, and Karama Has No Walls.
The New Horizon Award which honours the best two films directed by students or beginners was won by Nature’s Kid and Sary-Oy.
A total of QR475,000 prize money was distributed among the 17 winners in the six categories of this year’s awards.
Earlier during the awarding ceremony Arnaout honoured the 15 jury members from 15 different countries.
The festival has received a total of 1, 392 entries from 90 countries, from which 205 have been chosen to screen and compete for the six prestigious awards under Long, Medium, Short, New Horizon categories.
They include 23 Long films, 82 Medium films and 53 Short films, 36 New Horizon films and 11 Promising films.
The Peninsula
