After a
successful world premiere at the 77th Locarno Film Festival — where the film
competed at the Pardi di Domani – Corti d'Autore Competition — Maha Haj’s
poignant Palestinian short UPSHOT walked home with the Pardino d’Oro Swiss Life
for Best Auteur Short Film Award and the Junior Jury Award for the Best Auteur
Short Film at the Swiss festival’s closing ceremony on Saturday, where Haj
herself received the award.
اضافة اعلان
The film
received widespread audience and critical acclaim, with Samuel Lembo of
Sinistra.ch saying, “[The film] is a punch to the gut and a strong blow to the
heart. [It’s] a roar for Palestine at Locarno.”
Meanwhile,
film critic Mohamed Reda described the film as “one of the best films [he’s]
seen this year,” gushing about it in The Middle East Newspaper and praising
it's acting, comparing it to a “harmonious musical duet.”
“Everything
fits in its place, and the rhythm is fluid, yet [the film] isn't in a hurry to
reach that twist, which could have been squandered if the overall approach had
not been consistent from the start.”
Commenting on
the theme of her short, Haj said, “UPSHOT is both a lamentation and a testament
to the indomitable power of the human spirit.”
“In a world
defined by suffering, Suleiman and Lubna's journey is a poignant reminder of
the boundless resilience of the human imagination. With a narrative set in the
future, this film confronts the stark reality of a nation scarred by decades of
conflict. There are no easy answers, no political solutions to assuage the
anguish of parents who have lost everything. And so, it unfolds in a realm
unbound by time or place — a poignant reflection of the irreparable loss that
defies earthly confines.”
UPSHOT is the
latest film written and directed by the acclaimed Palestinian filmmaker Maha
Haj — whose last feature film, MEDITERRANEAN FEVER, won the Best Screenplay
Prize in the Un Certain Regard sidebar of the Cannes Film Festival in 2022.
Set against
the backdrop of Gaza's enduring strife, UPSHOT is a gripping drama brought to
life by a starry cast headlined by Mohammed Bakri — who received numerous
awards for his works, including the Career Achievement Award at the El Gouna
Film Festival and Berlinale’s Free Speech Bear Award — alongside Areen Omari,
and Amer Hlehel. The film is lensed by Augustin Bonnet and edited by Veronique
Lange, with production design handled by Saher Dwairy.
It tells the
story of Suleiman and Lubna, a couple who retreat to a mist-shrouded, isolated
farm as they try to cope with unspeakable loss. Through the alchemy of
storytelling, Suleiman and Lubna conjure a parallel reality free of their pain
in which their lives unfold in vivid detail. But when a journalist intrudes
upon their sanctuary, wielding the blunt force of truth, the fragile illusion
they've constructed threatens to unravel.
UPSHOT is a
joint production between Palestine, Italy, and France, and is produced by
Ramallah-based company August Films with Hanna Atallah and Ronza Kamel — the
two of which are also co-producing THANK YOU FOR BANKING WITH US, which is in
post-production and, like UPSHOT, will be distributed worldwide by MAD World
and in all Arabic-speaking territories by MAD Distribution.
Haj is a
filmmaker with a diverse background in English and Arabic literature. A
graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, she weaves her profound
understanding of storytelling into each frame. After making her mark as an
artistic designer on renowned productions such as THE ATTACK by Ziad Douairi
and ON THE HILL by Rafael Natjari, she made her directorial debut in 2009 with
the short film ORANGES, followed by the poignant documentary BEHIND THESE WALLS
in 2010.
Her first
foray into feature filmmaking came in 2015 with PERSONAL AFFAIRS — a critically
acclaimed work that was also selected for Un Certain Regard in the 2016 edition
of the Cannes Film Festival. MEDITERRANEAN FEVER followed up its success at
Cannes in 2022 with an extended festival tour that included Edinburgh, Chicago,
Palm Springs, Sydney, Melbourne, Sarajevo, Vancouver, Goa, Sao Paolo, Sevilla
and Rotterdam international film festivals. The film won the Student Jury Prize
at Tokyo FILMex and a Golden Firebird for Young Cinema at the Hong Kong
International Film Festival. It was also Palestine’s official submission for
Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards the following year.
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