The award marks a hattrick for Tariq Rimawi's animated film.
Tariq Rimawi’s short film Zoo won the Best Short Animation Award at the Bahrain Film Festival, while Khalil Dreyfus Zaarour’s documentary The Birds Have Left Beirut took home the Best Short Documentary Award.
Zoo had its world premiere at the Red Sea International Film Festival. This is the third award the film has garnered, previously winning the Giuseppe Maestri Prize for Best Animation at the XXIV International Festival Corti da Sogni Antonio Ricci and the the Tripoli Best Animation Award at the Lebanon International Short Film Festival. Zoo was also screened at the Short Film Corner of the Cannes Film Festival, and held its European premiere at the XXIV International Festival Corti da Sogni Antonio Ricci. It has screened at over a dozen prestigious film festivals, including its world premiere at the Red Sea International Film Festival, the Short Film Corner of the Cannes Film Festival, the Festival Internacional de Cinema Ambiental de Garopaba in Brazil, the Karama Yemen Human Rights Film Festival, the Festival du film d’Animation pour la Jeunesse de Bourg en Bresse in France, and the Toronto Palestine Film Festival.
Written and directed by Tariq Rimawi, Zoo is produced by StudioNICE Creative, was supported by Jordan’s Royal Film Commission, and received a co-production prize from the Robert Bosch Stiftung Foundation.
With MAD Solutions handling distribution in the Arab world, the film is produced by Aminah Abdat and Moritz Mayerhofer.
The Birds Have Left Beirut had its world premiere at the Cairo International Film Festival. It stars Rodolphe Zaarour and is produced by Paul Thiltges Distributions,
