Mahdi Fleifel’s powerful study of life in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp, A World Not Ours, has won the International Competition at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival, it was announced today. The delighted filmmaker said “I am immensely grateful to the programmers at the EIFF for inviting my film. I have lived, studied and worked in the UK for 13 years, but I've never managed to screen any of my work at a single British film event - not even my short films which were pretty successful internationally. Winning the prize in Britain's No. 1 Film Festival is too good to be true. I hope this will help bring our film to a wider audience in the UK and I would like to thank the jury for this wonderful honour.”
You can also catch A World Not Ours at the East End Film Festival which opened in London this week.
The Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film went to Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s exploration of deep sea fishing, Leviathan, which is one of Eye For Film's top picks of the festival. The directors, who described themselves as "totally bowled over" and said the award will inspire them to keep making films that push the envelope when it comes to cinema and art. The jury also gave a special commendation to Scottish drama For Those In Peril.
Young actors Jamie Blackley and Toby Regbo shared the award for Best Performance in a British Feature Film for their work in uwantmetokillhim?. The Audience Award went to Fire In The Night, a moving documentary about the Piper Alpha disaster. Also commended by the audience was Mikey Please and Dan Ojari's Marilynn Myller, in the Best New British Animation category.
This year's short film winners were GHL by Lotte Schreiber and Doll Parts by Muzi Quawson, while Josh Gibson received an award for his work as DOP on Light Plate.
Celestial Wives Of The Meadow Mari won the Student Critics Jury Award, with the jury describing it as "a witty, perceptive and beautiful celebration of folk mythologies."
