For the jubilee 5th Best Arabic Film Awards, which be announced at the Cannes Film Festival (July 6-17), have decided by an International jury composed of the 160 most influential international critics from 63 countries
This year, I was again invited to participate in the International jury, which will present the awards for the best Arabic films from 2020 at the Cannes Film Festival. Last year, I was part of the jury, which that time awarded the best Arabic films 4th time, and was composed of 142 most eminent critics in the world from 57 countries. For this year's jubilee 5th Award for Best Arabic Feature and Documentary Film, the Arab Film Center has expanded its jury, with 160 most important and influential film critics from 63 countries around the world, deciding on the attractive conic awards this year. I was the only representative from Macedonia in this jury, and from the former Yugoslavia, the jury has two representatives from Croatia and one critic from Serbia.
There were 21 films in competition this year. It is interesting that, although the past year was a very difficult for the film industry, still, the Arabic film proved to be quite vital and exceptional works could be seen. What is interesting is that there was an incredibly strong competition, where a quarter of the films were this year's candidates for an Oscar nomination for a foreign film. As the awards manager, American film critic Deborah Young, said: "Arab cinema has offered high quality feature films and documentaries, making it difficult to select nominees for this year's awards. What makes me happy, is the fact that this year there is an even greater number of women directors, a trend that I hope will continue in the future."
And that is really so, the number of 11 women directors from 21 films is incredible, which is to say, exactly half of the nominees are women. It is interesting that although the choice was strong, there were many debut works. As for the quality of the films, speaks very well one of the conditions to be included in the selection for the awards, that is their participation in one of the major film festivals outside of the Arab world. So, in the selection of films these are extremely current and engaged topics, and films that won awards in Venice, Berlin, Toronto, were in the main selection in Cannes and at a number of other festivals.
The critics enjoyed in this number of 21 films, which of them is better, in order to reach the shortlist, that is, three films in all six categories voted for: for best feature and documentary film, best director, screenplay and best male and female role. For the best feature film in the race are: the Moroccan "Zanka Contact", as well as the Oscar candidates from Palestine and Jordan, "Gaza mon amour" and "200 meters", and for the best documentary are fighting: the Egyptian candidate for "Oscar", "Lift Like a Girl", as well as the Moroccan sentimental "Postcards" and the independent anti-censorship film "Before the Dying of the Light".
The Arab Film Center is a non-profit organization registered in Amsterdam. It is an international promotional platform for Arabic cinema, which enables the promotion and networking of Arabic film, and by participating an international festivals and markets, it contributes to the representatives of the film industry recognizing Arabic cinema. It is a real promotion of their film, if anyone really wants to do it, unlike Macedonia. The Arab Film Center also publishes an Arabic Film Magazine in English, where these awards are always presented, as well as the members of the jury. The members of the jury are also presented on the website of the Arab Film Center, there is a special category for these annual awards for Arabic films, and also the magazine publishes the reviews of the critics for the winning films.
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