IDFA Forum Awards: Top Prizes Go Documentary Pitch About Palestinian Child, And Comedic Take On Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Filmmaker Mohammed Almughanni’s project Son of the Streets, about a Palestinian child living in a refugee camp in Beirut, has been awarded Best Pitch at the IDFA Forum Awards. The world’s largest documentary film festival presented two additional prizes on Wednesday, including the IDFA Forum Award for Best Rough Cut to Coexistence, My Ass!, and the DocLab Forum Award to Turbulence. Each of the winners receives a cash prize of €1,500.
The logline for Almughanni’s film reads, “Against all odds, a stateless Palestinian child in a Beirut refugee camp embarks on a courageous journey for recognition, education, and a brighter future in Son of the Streets.” The project is listed as a co-production of Poland and Palestine. Almughanni was born in Gaza and studied cinema at the renowned Łódź Film School in Poland.
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In a statement about the awards, Best Pitch jurors Zdeněk Blaha and Nada Riyadh explained why they chose Almughanni’s proposal for their top prize.
“To be a jury at the Forum means seeing lots of great, important, but very different projects. So we had to set up our inner guidelines. With our decision, we would like to support not only a specific aspiring talent but also a cause,” Zdeněk Blaha and Nada Riyadh wrote, in an apparent reference to Palestine. “If there was one project that needs support at this moment the most, it is this one. We would like to recognize the struggle of a nation forced to live as ghosts caught between the walls. Without home, without identity, without land. But with the courage of an ethical North-South co-production to tell a cinematic story when the world is not listening.”
In a separate email released by Almughanni, the filmmaker urged IDFA to direct his €1,500 prize money “to the people of Gaza by donating to the Medical Aid for Palestinians.”
Rough Cut winner Coexistence, My Ass!, directed by Amber Fares, also centers on the long running conflict in the Middle East, albeit it in an unexpectedly humorous vein. “Can comedy solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?” the film’s logline reads. “Noam Shuster thinks it’s worth a try. An Israeli comedian who embodies the complex identity politics of the Middle East, Noam is on the verge of making it big in the U.S. when COVID-19 sends her home – and straight to the hospital. As a BLM-inspired global movement takes shape, Noam realizes now is the time to focus her ambitions on home and convince her Jewish compatriots to examine their own racism – one joke at a time.”
The Rough Cut jurors – Tiny Mungwe and Patricia Finneran – wrote, “We cannot deny the pain and horror of this moment. In the documentary community, we can interrogate the role of art and storytelling to recognize our place in history, to process and to make meaning of the unfathomable. This all-women filmmaking team from diverse backgrounds is grappling with the core root of human conflict — how we see ‘the other’. This story of a risk-taking young comedienne who challenges the status quo and questions ‘what are the limits of comedy amidst conflict?’ explores the complex and often fraught power of comedy as social commentary. We are pleased to recognize director Amber Fares, producer Rachel Leah Jones, and their dynamic protagonist Noam Shuster Eliassi for their film Coexistence, My Ass!, with the 2023 IDFA Forum Rough Cut Award for most promising project.”
Militantropos, created by a collective of Maksym Nakonechnyi, Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova and Simon Mozgovyi, was recognized with an Honorable Mention for the IDFA Forum Rough Cut Award.
Juros Mungwe and Finneran, wrote of Militantropos, “We live in a world where violent conflict is ever- present, recorded on cell phones with images shared on social media in a torrent of media chaos. At the same time, there are filmmakers willing to take the risks and give their :me to document history and shape the narrative of these times. Some of these films will transcend documentation and become Cinema. A rare few. Militantropos is one of those films. The film posits and then illustrates how war creates an altered state of existence, changing how we relate to ourselves and each other. Created by a collec:ve of four directors – Maksym Nakonechnyi, Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova and Simon Mozgovyi – Miltantropos invites us to think about the role of the director in a new way and witness the beauty of work created in a spirit of collaboration forged amidst conflict. We are pleased to recognize this film with an Honorable Mention for the 2023 IDFA Forum Rough Cut Award for most promising project.”
The IDFA DocLab Forum jury — Ana Brzezińska and Judith Okonkwo — said of Turbulence, directed by Ben Joseph Andrews and Emma Roberts, “We were moved by many of the boundary pushing experiences in this year’s DocLab Forum. We celebrate all the artists for their work, and one in particular for its challenge. For proposing a critical and compassionate conversation about technology through the lens of disability, and for offering us a generous insight into a personal experience that reminds us that there is a multitude of realities in every human being we encounter.”
IDFA Forum is described as “one of the most influential meeting places for filmmakers, creators, producers, and industry representatives working on ground-breaking creative feature documentaries and new media projects. “Created 30 years ago to bring together creative documentary makers with potential financial and sales collaborators, the IDFA Forum has grown into a world-leading space to explore coproduction, co-financing and distribution strategies.”
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