Susan Youssef steals show

Debutant Palestinian filmmaker Susan Youssef stole the limelight at the Dubai International Film Festival’s glittering award ceremony held on Wednesday, where outstanding talent from the UAE, the Arab world, Asia and Africa were honoured with the prestigious Muhr Awards. Youssef’s debut film, Habibi, bagged a number of important awards including Muhr Arab Award for the Best Film, Best Actress and Best Editor at the ceremony which also marked closing of the festival. She also received the Best Feature Film Prize of the International Critics for Arab films from the International Federation of Film Critics, the world’s foremost body of film writers, academics and critics from over 60 countries. Habibi, a modern day take on the tragic romantic tale of Layla and Majnun, is the first fiction feature set in Gaza in over 15 years. The film by Susan Youssef was produced with the support of DIFF’s post-production fund, Enjaaz. “I wish I could screen this film in Gaza. It was a miracle to finish this project,” she said after accepting the award. Over the past eight days, the festival screened a vivid showcase of 171 films from 56 nations, hosted live music performances that attracted thousands of spectators, and celebrated the spirit of cultural solidarity through its central credo of ‘Bridging Cultures, Meeting Minds.’ The festival welcomed some of the towering names in cinema from Hollywood, Europe, India, Asia, Africa and the rest of the world. The festival also put the global spotlight on the city with the premiere of Mission:Impossible — Ghost Protocol. The presentation of the Muhr Awards, the only initiative of its kind with the clearly defined mandate of promoting filmmaking talent in the Arab world, Asia and Africa, brought a perfect culmination to the celebration of the finest in global cinema over eight days. Some 90 shorts, documentaries and features, selected from over 1,700 entries from 106 countries, had competed for more than 36 Muhr Emirati, Muhr Arab and Muhr AsiaAfrica Awards and over $600,000 in prize money in addition to invaluable industry connections.  hey were also eligible for a variety of prestigious global awards including the FIPRESCI International Prize of the Critics Award and the Human Rights Film Network Award.