Ghalia Benali Wins the Best International Actress Award for Her Role in Fatwa

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At Le Festival de Cinéma Écrans Noirs

Ghalia Benali Wins the Best International Actress Award for Her Role in Fatwa


Tunisian star Ghalia Benali won the Best International Actress Award for her role in director Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud's film Fatwa at Le Festival de Cinéma Écrans Noirsin Cameron. This marks the film's 18th award which makes it one of the most successful Arab films this year.

Le Festival de Cinéma Écrans Noirs aims to promote the role of cinema in Africa. The film festival is organized by the Ecrans Noirs Association that aims to spread film creations to six countries in Central Africa (Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic and Chad).

Fatwa received 17 awards at international film festivals, including four awards at the Tunisian Film Festival; Best Screenplay, Best Décor, Best Male Performance, and Best Supporting Actress, Best Feature Film at the International Festival of Cinema and Audiovisual of Burundi (FESTICAB), Saad Eldin Wahba Award for Best Arab Film at the Cairo International Film Festival, the Grand Prix at the Festival Maghrébin du Film OUJDA in Morocco, and the Golden Dhow Prize at the Zanzibar International Film Festival in Tanzania.

The film also won two awards at the Carthage Film Festival (JCC): the Golden Tanit and Best Actor;
three awards at the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO); the African Union Prize, a Special Mention and the Bronze Stallion, the Samir Farid Jury Prize at the Festival du Cinema Africain Khouribga (FCAK), Best Director at the Kimolos International Film Festival, Best Male Performer Award at the Vues d'Afrique - Festival International de Cinéma in Montreal, Canada,
and the Silver Prize at the International Oriental Film Festival of Geneva (FIFOG) in Switzerland.

The film tells the story of Brahim, a Tunisian guy living in France, who decides to go back to Tunisia to attend his son's funeral, who passed away in a motorcycle accident. He then discovers that Marouane, his son, was militating with a radical Islamist group, so Brahim decides to identify the people who brainwashed his son. The investigation leads him to doubt the circumstances surrounding his son's death.

Written and directed by Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud, Fatwa stars Ahmed Hafiane, Ghalia Benali, and Sarra Hannachi. The film is produced by Arts Distribution (Tunisia) and Les Films du Fleuve (Belgium), and MAD Solutions distributes the film in the Arab world.