Palestinian Oscar entry “Omar” wins Dubai Film Fest top prizeDecember 14, 2013 - 13:08 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) organizers dished out its Muhr awards on the eve of the shindig's end, which will close Saturday, Dec 14 with a gala screening of David O. Russell's American Hustle, The Hollywood Reporter said. The awards were presented at a standalone ceremony Dec. 13 by Sheikh Mansoor bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, United Arab Emirates vp, prime minister and ruler of Dubai to dozens of the Arab world’s best filmmakers across the myriad Muhr Arab categories, as well as their counterparts from Asia and Africa. Winners included Hany Abu Assad for Omar - the Palestinian film in the best foreign Oscar nomination race - for the Muhr Arab best director award. The United Arab Emirates/Palestian co-production's actor/producer Waleed Zuaiter picked up the best film prize for Omar in the same Muhr section. Other plaudits included Tsai Ming Liang who won the festival's best feature (Asia/Africa) nod for Stray Dogs (Jiao You), a Taiwanese and French co-production. Screen legend Irrfan Khan secured this year's Muhr best actor (Asia/Africa) prize for The Lunchbox (Dabba), the French, German and Indian co-production that had already attracted positive notices from prior festival screenings. Organizers said this year's plaudits marked the most competitive and diverse competition since the inception of the awards in 2006 for Arab entrants and 2007 for filmmakers from Asia/Africa. Both first-time directors and cinema legends such as Syrian director Mohamed Malas and Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Khan entered new films this year, beating hundreds of other entrants to be shortlisted. Related links: Top stories The creative crew of the Public TV had chosen 13-year-old Malena as a participant of this year's contest. She called on others to also suspend their accounts over the companies’ failure to tackle hate speech. Penderecki was known for his film scores, including for William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist”, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”. The festival made the news public on March 19, saying that “several options are considered in order to preserve its running” Partner news | Kazakhstan welcomes Yerevan, Baku’s agreement to meet in Almaty Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has welcomed the agreement of Baku and Yerevan to hold negotiations in Almaty. Armenia offers to temporarily host, preserve Gaza manuscripts The Armenian Foreign Minister has said Yerevan is ready to help preserve manuscripts from the conflict zone in Gaza. Aliyev says no need for mediators in Armenia-Azerbaijan process Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev believes that Baku and Yerevan do not mediators in the process of normalizing relations. Aram I supports Karekin II’s “patriotic position” Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia Aram I has expressed support for the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. |