the Golden Star awarded to the Palestinian film “Happy Holidays”

The film also won a double Best Actress Award for Palestinian actresses Manar Shehab and Wafaa Aoun.

Palestinian director Scandar Copti won, Saturday, December 7, the Golden Star, the supreme award at the Marrakech International Film Festival (FIFM) with his film Happy holidays. Scandar Copti’s second feature film is a family drama in which a simple accident links the destinies of four characters, exposing the complexities of human relationships in the face of the weight of patriarchal traditions.

“Despite the joy we feel for this distinction, we feel saddened because of all the atrocities we witness, the crimes committed against our people and all humanity,” declared Mona Copti while accepting the prize in place of her husband, who was absent from the closing ceremony of the festival.

“Faced with our incapacity, we ask ourselves how we got here? How did dehumanization become normal? How did murder, destruction and displacement become acceptable? How could we lose our bearings?“, she added.

“We hope that the film Happy Holidays answers some of these questions by highlighting the impact of indoctrination on societies and the behavior of individuals, particularly in societies where women are still locked down by customs and traditions which above all deny their personal freedom. pleaded Mona Copti.

The film also won a double Best Actress Award for Palestinian actresses Manar Shehab and Wafaa Aoun. The Best Actor Prize was awarded to Ukrainian actor Roman Lutskyi for his role in Under The Volcano by Polish director Damian Kocur, who also won the directing prize. The jury prize was awarded ex aequo to The Fifth by Argentinian director Silvina Schnicer and The village next to paradise by Somali director Mo Harawe.

The jury for this 21 edition of the FIFM, chaired by the Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, brought together the American actresses Patricia Arquette and French Virginie Efira, the Iranian director Ali Abbassi and the British actors Andrew Garfield and Australian Jacob Elordi.

The Marrakech International Film Festival took place from November 29 to December 7 in the presence of several big names in cinema, such as Canadian filmmakers David Cronenberg and American Tim Burton and American actor Sean Penn.