ANDhe documentary ‘Bye Bye Tibériade’ (Bye Bye Tiberias), by French-Algerian-Palestinian director Lina Soualem, in which she approaches four generations of Palestinian women in her family, was awarded the Best Feature Film award at the 21st edition of the Tarifa-Tangier African Film Festival (FCAT) held in the south of Spain.
Lina Soualem already won the FCAT Audience Award in 2021 for ‘Leur Algérie’ in which she got closer to her Algerian paternal family. In both cases, the director uses the intimate memory of her family, and the video archives that her father recorded in her childhood, to portray the collective memory of the people of Palestine, in the case of ‘Bye Bye Tibériade’, and Algeria, in ‘Leur Algérie’.
The film, which represented Palestine at the Oscars, “c“It successfully combines the intimate with the universal, poetry and humor in a deeply human approach,” noted the jury. The director dedicated the award to the Palestinian people and remembered those who are not fortunate enough to tell their stories in Gaza, because they have been murdered and “those who were sons and daughters of Palestinians exiled in ’48.”
And he recalled that “cinema travels but not for everyone, since there are many African directors who do not get visas to come to Europe”, one more difficulty when it should be a right.” The Casa África Award for Best Director went to Moroccan director Leïla Kilani for her film ‘Indivision’, “for his mastery and audacity in bringing this narrative trance to life.
A tale from the Arabian Nights revisited by a director close to the concerns of our time: violence in class relations, virtual lives lived through social networks, the environmental crisis and the eternal question of man versus man. nature,” explains the jury.
The feature film ‘Disco Afrika: a Malagasy story’, by filmmaker Luck Razanajaona (Madagascar, 2023), was recognized with the V ACERCA Prize of Spanish Cooperation at the FCAT, “for its reflection on the opportunities for sustainable development in Africa, which They translate into individual opportunities for each person, and for each country.” Girley Jazama won the Best Actress Award for her role in ‘Under the Hanging Tree’, while Parista Sambo took the Best Actor Award for his work in ‘Disco Afrika’.
The Andalusian jury, made up of Chaimaa Boukharsa, Agus Jiménez and Pablo García Casado, awarded the FAMSI Award for best short film to ‘Bazigaga’, by Jo Ingabire Moys. Its protagonist, Zula Karuhimbe, saved more than a hundred people from being killed in the Rwandan war challenging a patriarchal and colonial society. The TV5 Monde Audience Award went to ‘Le specter de Boko Haram’, by Cameroonian filmmaker Cyrielle Raingou.
