Chicken With Plums, A Separation, Woody Harrelson among Abu Dhabi winners

Three films received Abu Dhabi Film Festival’s (Oct 13-22) top prize of $100,000 each this year: Marjane Satrapi’s Chicken with Plums in the Narrative Feature Competition, Julia Murat’s Stories Only Exist When Remembered in the New Horizons section and Position Among The Stars by Leonard Retel Helmrich in the Best Documentary category.

In the Narrative Competition Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation won the Special Jury Prize, Best Director from the Arab world went to Ismaël Ferroukhi for Free Men, Best Actor went to Woody Harrelson for his role in Rampart and Best Actress was awarded to Jayashree Basavaraj in Lucky.

In its second year, the New Horizon category for first and second-time directors awarded prizes of $50,000 to Gurvinder Singh for Alms for a Blind Horse and Amr Salama’s Asma’a.

The same prize money was awarded toThe Tiniest Place, directed by Tatiana Huezo (Special Jury Award), Gemma Atwal (Best New Director, NETPAC award) for Marathon Boy and Safinez Bousbia (Best Director from the Arab world, FIPRESCI) for El Gusto, in the Documentary Feature Competition.

The 2011 Audience Choice Award ($50,000) went to Skeem, directed by Tim Greene while in its inaugural edition the Best Film About Significant Environmental Issues ($15,000) went to The Last Mountain, directed by Bill Haney.

Winners in full:

Narrative Competition:

Best Narrative Film – Chicken With Plums, dirs Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud (France, Germany, Belgium)

Special Jury Award – A Separation, dir Asghar Farhadi (Iran)

Best Director from the Arab World – Ismaël Ferroukhi, Free Men (France, Morocco)

Best Producer from the Arab World – Ziad Hamzeh and Ridha Behi, Always Brando (Tunisia)

Best Actor – Woody Harrelson, Rampart (US)

Best Actress – Jayashree Basavaraj, Lucky (South Africa)

Jury Special Mention – Soufia Issami, Mouna Bahmad, Nouza Akel and Sara Betioui, actresses, On The Edge (Morocco, France, Germany, UAE)

Narrative Competition jury – Nabil Maleh, Syrian filmmaker (president); Marianne Denicourt, French actress; Lucinda Englehart, British producer; Laila Eloui, Egyptian actress; George Sluizer, Dutch director

New Horizons Competition

Best Film – Stories Only Exist When Remembered, dir Julie Murat (Brazil, Argentina, France)

Special Jury Award – Alms for a Blind Horse, dir Gurvinder Singh (India)

Best Director from the Arab World – Amr Salama, Asma’a (Egypt)

Best Producer from the Arab World – Souney Kadouh, This Narrow Place (Lebanon, US)

Best Actor – Maged El Kedwany, Asma’a (Egypt)

Best Actress (split prize) – Memona Mohamed, Tears of Sand (Spain) and Sonia Guedes, Stories Exist Only When Remembered (Brazil, Argentina, France)

New Horizons Competition jury – Bahman Ghobadi, Iranian director (president); Paul Baboudjian, Lebanese filmmaker; Marwan Hamed, Egyptian director; Annemarie Jacir, Palestinian writer/director; Aimee Mullins, US athlete/model/actress

Documentary Competition

Best Documentary – Position Among the Stars, dir Leonard Retel Helmrich (Netherlands)

Special Jury Award – The Tiniest Place, dir Tatiana Huezo (Mexico)

Best New Director – Gemma Atwal, Marathon Boy (India, UK, US)

Best Director from the Arab World – Safinez Bousbia, El Gusto (France, Algeria, Ireland, UAE)

Best Producer from the Arab World – Film Clinic, Tahrir 2011: The Good, the Bad and the Politician (Egypt, UAE)

Documentary Competition jury – Tahani Rached, Egyptian-Canadian writer/director (president); Anwar Jamal, Indian director; Victor Kossakovsky, Russian director; Mahmoud Al Massad, Jordanian filmmaker; Mostafa Messnaoui, Moroccan writer and film critic

Our World

Best Film – The Last Mountain, dir by Bill Haney (US)

Audience Choice Award – Skeem, dir Timothy Greene (South Africa)

NETPAC Award – Marathon Boy, directed by Gemma Atwal “For the great Indian story of a child told locally, but brilliantly integrated into the problems of Asian societies”

FIPRESCI Prize – El Gusto, dir Safinez Bousbia (France, Algeria, Ireland, UAE)