Four Arab movies win big at 77th Locarno Film Festival

Titles from Tunisia, Qatar, Saudia Arabia, Palestine and other Arab nations take part

Agora by Tunisian filmmaker Ala Eddine Slim won the Pardo Verde award. Photo: Locarno Film Festival

Arab films made an impression at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, raking in several top prizes.

The 77th iteration of the festival, which takes place every year in the Swiss town it is named after, concluded on Saturday. It had considerable Arab representation, with titles from Tunisia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine taking part.

Lithuanian teen drama Toxic by Saule Bliuvaite won the festival's top Golden Leopard prize for best film. However, four films addressing regional topics also stood out during the award ceremony.

Green Line

Directed by French filmmaker Sylvie Ballyot, the documentary won the Mubi award for debut feature.

The film follows a woman named Elfida ‘Fida' Bizri, who grew up in the 1980s during the thick of the Lebanese Civil War. It revolves around a childhood memory, when Bizri witnessed a conflict across her school. A hundred people died in the battle.

Bizri, who co-wrote the film with Ballyot, meets other eyewitnesses as well as militia fighters, confronting and comparing her own experiences with theirs.

Mond

Iraqi-Austrian filmmaker Kurdwin Ayub’s Mond (Moon) was awarded the special jury prize. The film is a tense and thrilling drama that tells the story of Sarah, a former martial artist who has been employed to train three sisters from a wealthy Jordanian family. The job seems like a high point in her career at first. However, Sarah finds the women are under constant surveillance and that they are not particularly interested in sports. Sarah soon finds herself questioning why she was really hired.

In her director’s note on the festival’s website, Ayub writes: “It’s all about sisters, no matter where they come from, and about cages, no matter where they are. Cages you want to leave and those you wish you could return to.”

Agora

Agora by Tunisian filmmaker Ala Eddine Slim won the Pardo Verde. The prize, also known as the Green Award, is given to films that reflect upon environmental issues.

The film is driven by the sudden return of three missing persons to a remote Tunisian town. Their reappearance sparks familial and communal strains, challenging the status-quo. A police investigation is soon mobilised as events in town get progressively stranger. Meanwhile, nature offers its perspective as well.

“Agora is about man's inability to overcome the unresolved problems of a shared past,” Slim hints in his directors’ statement on the Locarno website. “It is also a point of view that can be the dream and/or nightmare of two animals observing human stupidity.”

Upshot

Palestinian filmmaker Maha Haj’s Upshot won two awards at the festival, including Pardino d’Oro Swiss Life for best auteur short film and the Junior Jury Award for best auteur short film.

The film is set in the future, and explores the far-reaching ripples of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It tells the story of a couple who, after experiencing a profound loss, move to a remote farm. There, they immersive themselves an escapist reality, which is threatened with the arrival of a journalist.