Prize of the Interreligious Jury, Nyon 2022
The film offers insights into the life of a Syrian family in Belgium, characterized by the director's empathy towards her characters. Starting with drawings made by the family members, their experiences of refuge and their dreams are confronted with the realities they have to deal with. At the center are the daughters, two young women in search of their way between tradition and modernity.
With attention and tenderness, Vida Dena shows the problems typical of refugee families: shaken identities and often difficult experiences of integration. But they also inspire dreaming; life proves stronger than all obstacles.
We are very proud to be able to award this touching film, which - although shot almost exclusively in the family's living quarters - connects past and future, life and dream, roots and identity, and which consists to a considerable extent of drawings that are integrated in a surprising and convincing way as poetic animations.