THEEB – Award for Best Director in Venice

Jordan filmmaker Naji Abu Nowar receives Awarc for Best Director for his first feature film THEEB.

Alongside its competition, the film festival in Venice holds parallel the section Orizzonti, in which 29 films from different regions in the world have been presented this year and where also first films can make an appearance. Among them was THEEB, whose author Naji Abu Nowar was awarded with the prize for the Best Director at the end of the 71. Mostra del Cinema.

His story about a young boy named „Theeb“ (in English: wolf) takes place during the period fo the first World War. But in Naji Abu Nowars film we are not looking at Europe for once, but at the Middle East, where the Ottoman Empire is in its last stage and British men are guided by Bedouins through the desert. The latter are threatened in their existence by a railway that is going through the desert. In this – from a European perspective – remote part of the world, a boy is growing up, who, alert and curious, follows his elder brother on his delicate mission.

This impressively photographed feature film had its world premiere in Venice before travelling to the festivals of Toronto and San Sebastian later on.

We are very happy about this highly deserved award and congratulate the Jordan director for his fascinating first film. In Switzerland, THEEB will be released in 2015. For the young protagonist Jacir Eid, this voyage to the festival at the Lido means a lot, since he had never left the desert before, where he is living in a landscape with a far horizon and where water has to be drawn from deep wells. Other than in the alleys of Venice, where his convincing play has now been celebrated.