The jury
Elena Rubashevska (Ukraine), Jim Slotek (Canada), Ergin Opengin (Turkey)
Awarded films
-
A Happy Day by
Hisham Zaman
(Norway, 2023, 113 min)
Motivation: “We discovered in the process of screening our assigned films that there are really two streams of Kurdish moviemaking. There is the diaspora, Kurdish-born filmmakers living in other countries who express their voice through the prism of other cultures. Then there are national filmmakers, who present the Kurdish experience they live every day. They both have uniquely different voices that deserve to be heard and honoured.
Yet we have chosen a film that, in our opinion, stood apart. It has humour, heart, character development and hope. The personal dramatic experience of the director of Kurdish origin transcended the local agenda and united pains and hopes of all those struggling without home and battling for the dignified life that every human being, disregarding of origin, deserves”
.