Teta, Alf Marra wins Best Film award at London fest

Mahmoud Kaabour’s film Teta, Alf Marra (Grandma, a Thousand Times), a documentary feature about this grandmother won the Best Film award at London International Documentary Festival, the largest documentary festival in the UK.

The festival’s director, Patrick Hazard called the production a “film of great integrity, love and intelligence”.

Teta, Alf Marra was the jury’s favorite out of 65 international titles in competition. It marks the first time that an Arab film wins the Best Film title at London’s prestigious documentary festival, which took place from May 13th – 28th.  

The film showed at sold out screenings in Tunis, Rotterdam, Damascus, and Krakow and previously won two Audience Awards for Best Documentary from Doha Tribeca Film Festival and DOX BOX Film Fest. 

The film was also recently chosen for a special event screening at Tribeca Film Festival in NYC and to open Mathaf: Arab Museum for Modern Arts in Doha.   

Speaking about the award, Eva Star Sayre, the film’s executive producer said: “This award is a humbling international recognition. Let it be an accolade for the Arab film industry and a testimony to its potential.” 

Teta, Alf Marra will have its South American premiere at Arabian Film Week in Buenos Aires later this month. The film is a poetic documentary that puts Kaabour’s feisty Beiruti grandmother at the centre of brave film exercises that commemorate her many worlds before they are erased by the passage of time and her eventual death.  

The 48-minute film, a UAE/Qatar/Lebanon co-production, was made possible with financial support from the Doha Film Institute and Screen Institute Beirut. It also marked the first film to be made by Veritas Film’s new Abu Dhabi office at twofour54, Abu Dhabi’s dedicated content creation community.