Silvered Water/Syria Self-Portrait/3
In its important tour around the world, to festivals but also to a theatrical release in some countries, the film by Wiam Simav Bedirxan and Ossama Mohammed was at the Istanbul Independent International Festival to get a big award. The jury said:
″In the spirit of the mission statement of the festival, we the jury of the Love and Change section, acknowledges that the world is hurting, and that it is the responsibility of civil societies to participate in positive change”.
Of their unanimous decision to award the film the $10.000 prize, they said: ″The film that the jury felt most strongly about, is one that forces us to look oppression, torture, violence, despair and death directly in the face. It is bold and loud, yet poetic; it is intimate and yet collective. It is a timeless telling of people’s pursuit of freedom, as much as it is a timeless telling of governments’ failing in serving and protecting their people in the name of power and tyranny. ″
Receiving the award, an emotional Wiam Simav Bedirxan said: ″Maybe right now, I am receiving the award for this film, but this film is the story not of me, but all of humanity. ″
