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The Fourth edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival (Rsiff) came to a crescendo with the naming of the winners of this year’s prestigious Yusr Awards.

The features jury, Tûba Büyüküstün, Minnie Driver, Daniel Dae Kim, and Abu Bakr Shawky, led by Jury President Spike Lee deliberated to finally select winners across 16 feature films in competition, while the shorts jury Hamzah Jamjoom, Ramata-Toulaye Sy, and Ke-Xi Wu judged across the short film offering of Rsiff 2024.

Red Path (Tunisia) directed by Lotfi Achour was awarded the prestigious Golden Yusr for Best Feature Film. An extraordinary journey into the wounded psyche of a child in a war zone, Red Path is the third feature film by director Lotfi Achour, and it had its world premiere at the Locarno Festival in Switzerland. With this film, we observe the development of Tunisian cinema, its craftsmanship, and its distinctive presence in this edition of the festival.

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Tunisia’s “Red Path,” directed by Lotfi Achour, was awarded the Golden Yusr for best feature film Thursday at the Red Sea Film Festival awards ceremony, where honorary awards were bestowed on Viola Davis and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Sarah Jessica Parker, Dev Patel, John Boyega and Nick Jonas were among the star guests.

Johnny Depp’s “Modi – Three Days on the Wing of Madness” screened as the festival’s final gala screening, with Depp attending with star Riccardo Scamarcio.

“Red Path,” described as “a journey into the wounded psyche of a child in a war zone,” is the third feature film by Achour. It had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival. The Golden Yusr comes with a $100,000 cash prize.

Achour also took home Red Sea’s Yusr prize for best director, which comes with a $10,000 prize.

The awards were bestowed by a features jury led by its president Spike Lee,...

Tunisian director Lotfi Achour’s Red Path won the Yusr Award for best competition film and the best director honor at the fourth edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival (Rsiff) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia during its Thursday evening awards ceremony that also saw Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Viola Davis being honored.

The Silver Yusr Feature Film Award went to Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown, a drama about young Palestinians caught in an eternal state of exile. Little Jaffna, starring and directed by Lawrence Valin, was honored with the AlUla Audience Award International Film, with Hobal from director Abdulaziz Alshlahei getting the Saudi film audience award.

“Ashraf, a shepherd boy working with his teenage cousin in impoverished northern Tunisia faces the unimaginable when Islamic State terrorists set on them and behead his cousin Nizar in front of him,” says a synopsis for Red Path. “Ashraf has no...

Tunisian drama Red Path, directed by Lotfi Achour, scooped the Golden Yusr for best film and the prize for best director at the 4th Red Sea International Film Festival on Thursday (December 12).

The main award was presented by jury head and Oscar-winning US filmmaker Spike Lee at a ceremony in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Scroll down for full list of winners

On stage, Lee declared that it was also Achour’s birthday, meaning the best film and director awards are quite the present, coming with cash prizes of $100,000 and $30,000 respectively.

The film, which premiered at Locarno, is inspired by the true...

Tunisia director Lotfi Achour’s Red Path has won best film and director at the fourth edition of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival.

The drama was among 15 titles from the Middle East, Africa, and, for the first time, Asia competing for the festival’s Yusrs awards.

Red Path, which world premiered at Locarno, revolves around a shepherd boy who is traumatized when his teenager cousin is beheaded by Islamic State terrorists in front of him. He brings the head back to his family, but recovering the teenage boy’s body becomes a challenge with the terrorists remaining a threat in the backdrop.

This year’s jury for the main feature film competition was presided over by Spike Lee, with support from Egyptian director Abu Bakr Shawky, UK actor Minnie Driver, Turkish actress Tûba Büyüküstün and U.S. actor and producer Daniel Dae Kim

Thursday evening’s ceremony kicked...

Arab independent films are enjoying a resurgence in terms of festival and commercial success affirms Antoine Khalife, the Red Sea Film Festival’s director of Arab programs and film classics, citing the example of Egyptian thriller “Flight 404,” which has grossed over $4 million in Saudi Arabia this year.

Khalife praises the modern spirit of recent Egyptian independent cinema and has chosen two titles for this year’s official selection – “Seeking Haven for Mr Rambo,” about an evicted man who seeks a new home for himself and his loyal dog, and “Snow White,” about a woman with dwarfism who develops a relationship with a man over the internet. “They’re both very modern and highly unusual films, which don’t just try to convey a message,” explains Khalife.

Red Sea’s opening film is a Saudi-Egyptian coproduction, “The Tale Of Daye’s Family,” about an 11-year-old Nubian albino boy who travels...

The Red Sea International Film Festival is now a Spike Lee joint.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker will preside over the Jeddah, Saudi Arabia film festival’s features-competition jury this year, Red Sea announced on Thursday via Instagram. Lee’s impressive filmography includes “Do the Right Thing” (1989), “Malcolm X” (1992), and “BlacKkKlansman” (2019), for which he won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. “BlacKkKlansman” was also nominated for Lee’s directing and for Best Picture.

The 2024 Red Sea Film Festival will take place in Jeddah’s Old Town of Al Balad from December 5-14.

Not in competition but newly announced to play at Red Sea 2024 is Thierry Frémaux’s “Lumière: Le Cinema,” the sequel to “Lumière: The Adventure Begins,” which debuted at the inaugural Red Sea festival. “Le Cinema” is a cinephile’s dream, described as “an unparalleled journey through the early days of celluloid,” it features 100 newly restored films. Frémaux is the director of...

The 55th International Film Festival of India (Iffi) has unveiled its main competition lineup, with 15 features vying for the Golden Peacock award carrying an INR4 million prize purse, notably featuring nine films directed by women.

Among the world premieres are Manijeh Hekmat and Faeze Azizkhani’s Iranian drama “Fear & Trembling,” exploring an older woman’s struggles with isolation, and Nikhil Mahajan’s “Raavsaheb,” an Indian crime thriller examining man-animal conflict in tribal lands.

The slate includes festival circuit standouts like Louise Courvoisier’s “Holy Cow” (France), which nabbed the Un Certain Regard Youth Prize at Cannes 2024, and Saulė Bliuvaitė’s “Toxic” (Lithuania), winner of the Golden Leopard at Locarno 2024. Bogdan Mureșanu’s Romanian revolution drama “The New Year That Never Came” arrives fresh from winning Venice’s Horizons and Fipresci awards.

The lineup also includes Belkis Bayrak’s “Gulizar” (Turkey), which played at Toronto and San Sebastian, and George Sikharulidze’s “Panopticon” (Georgia-u.

In November 2015, a staggeringly violent crime took place in the impoverished area of Mghila Mountain in Tunisia. A jihadist group attacked two young shepherds, killing one and forcing the survivor to carry a bloody message back to his family. The real-life case inspired Lotfi Achour’s harrowing drama “Red Path,” which played as part of the Meet the Neighbors competition at the Thessaloniki Film Festival.

“At first, I dismissed the idea of making a film based on this story, telling myself that I needed to let some time pass and my emotions calm down,” Achour told Variety. “When a year and a half later the second brother was murdered in similar circumstances, it brought back the need for me to talk about it because it was no longer an isolated crime but premeditated acts on the part of jihadists. From then on, I was obsessed with making this film.”

“Red Path...

Viola Davis will be honored by Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival, where the Oscar winner and four-time nominee will also be holding a master class highlighting her career.

On Monday, the festival — which will run Dec. 6 to 14 in Jeddah, on the Red Sea’s eastern shore — announced the main lineup of its fourth edition, which will open with the world premiere of Egyptian director Karim Shenawy’s musical drama “The Tale of Daye’s Family.” The film follows an 11-year-old Nubian albino with a beautiful voice “who faces adversity due to his unique appearance,” as the provided synopsis puts it.

“For us, this a perfect representation of where this region is headed and what’s happening here,” said the fest’s managing director Shivani Pandya Malhotra at a press conference, noting that the inspirational film is a co-production between Egypt and Saudi.

The Red Sea fest – which is...

The fourth editon of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival (December 5-14) has unveiled the line-up for its Competition strand and has selected Egypt-Saudi co-productionThe Tale Of Daye’s Family as its opening film.

The Tale Of Daye’s Family by Egyptian filmmaker Karim Shenawi tells the story of an 11-year-old Nubian albino boy who faces adversity due to his unique appearance and who gets a chance to audition for an Egyptian version of talent show The Voice.

Scroll down for full Competition line-up

Speaking at a Red Sea press conference this morning, the festival’s managing director...

Honors for and onstage appearances by Viola Davis and Egyptian star Mona Zaki (Perfect Strangers, Flight 404, Aserb: The Squadron, The Spider), Johnny Depp’s new movie as a director and a biopic about Robbie Williams will be part of this year’s Red Sea International Film Festival (Rsiff) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, organizers said Monday.

They also unveiled the competition lineup for the fest’s fourth edition. Organizers said that the overall lineup features 49 world and international premieres, also highlighting that six female filmmakers will be featured in the competition program.

Among the 15 competition titles announced are Reema Kagti’s Superboys of Malegaon, which bowed at the Toronto Film Festival, and Kurdwin Ayub’s Moon, which had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival where it won the special jury prize.

The Rsiff on Monday also added several galas to its lineup, plus unveiled its International Spectacular and its Families & Children programs.

U.K.-based distribution company Sovereign Films has secured the rights to distribute the drama film “Red Path” in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The movie tells the emotionally-charged true story that inspired the film. Director Lotfi Achour focuses on exploring themes of childhood resilience in the face of trauma and violence.

“Red Path” depicts the experience of 13-year-old Achraf after the murder of his cousin Nizar. He is tasked with carrying Nizar’s severed head as a message to his family. Throughout his journey, Achraf struggles with staying connected to his cousin’s spirit while recovering the body. The film was inspired by events in Tunisia in 2015 where teenagers were involved in a disturbingly violent crime.

Achour wanted to create a story that shows the capacity of children to withstand violence and trauma. His film depicts how Achraf uses both real and imaginary means to face what happened and continue living despite challenges.

Sovereign Films has acquired U.K. and Ireland distribution rights to “Red Path,” the latest feature from Tunisian director Lotfi Achour, which competed for the Golden Leopard at this year’s Locarno Film Festival.

The film, set for theatrical release in the second or third quarter of 2025, centers on 13-year-old Achraf, who is forced into a gruesome and unimaginable act after his cousin Nizar is murdered by a group of men. Carrying the severed head of his cousin as a brutal message to his family, Achraf finds himself haunted by Nizar’s ghost. As his elders fail him, Achraf is torn between holding on to Nizar’s spirit and fulfilling his duty to recover his cousin’s body, while grappling with the overwhelming burden of grief and survival.

Achour, whose 2016 short “Law of Lamb” vied for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, drew inspiration from actual events. “This film is...

Teodora Ana Mihai’s “Traffic” was named the winner of the 40th Warsaw Film Festival on Saturday. The film was written by Cristian Mungiu, who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes with “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” and stars “Happening” lead actor Anamaria Vartolomei.

“Traffic” focuses on Romanian immigrants in Belgium, who go from unwanted second-class citizens to very much wanted criminals, as they decide to stage a heist that will change their lives forever.

You can watch the trailer here:

“I was excited about the opportunity to work closely with Cristian Mungiu, as he was also co-producing the project. I anticipated it would be an intense and challenging experience, but I don’t shy away from challenges, as I demonstrated with [previous film] ‘La Civil,’” Mihai told Variety.

“I believe Cristian and I have always shared a similar understanding of the themes explored in this film, which camouflages...