The Guest: Aleppo-Istanbul Wins Two Awards at the Silk Road International Film Festival

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Best Feature and Best Actress to Star Saba Mubarak

The Guest: Aleppo-Istanbul Wins Two Awards at the Silk Road International Film Festival


The film The Guest: Aleppo-Istanbul won the Best Feature award and Best Actress award to Jordanian star Saba Mubarak at the closing ceremony of the Silk Road International Film Festival (SRIFF) (March 7-11) in Dublin, Ireland, where it competed in the Feature Film competition.

The Silk Road International Film Festival screens a special selection of films from the "Silk Road", countries part of the historical network of the Silk Road ancient trade routes. The selection called "Belt & Road" includes Asian, Arab, Middle Eastern, African, Mediterranean and European cinema.

The Guest: Aleppo-Istanbul won the Best Feature Film awardand Best Editing award to Editor Ahmed Hafez, in the National Feature Films Competition of the International Bosphorus Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Antalya Film Festival, which makes the film's total number of awards more than four awards. The film was screened at the Arab Women Film Festival in Sweden, LET'S CEE Film Festival in Vienna and the European Film Market (EFM), held as part of the Berlin International Film Festival.
Written and directed by Turkish director AndaƧ Haznederoğlu, The Guest: Aleppo-Istanbul stars Saba Mubarak and child Rawan Skeif, alongside a number of real Syrian refugees who are acting for the first time.

The Guest: Aleppo-Istanbul follows the journey of Lena and Meryem during their escape from the war in Syria. Lena is a ten-year-old girl who has lost her family in the war. She finds herself forced to make her way to Turkey with her baby sister and their neighbor Meryem, along with the other refugees. Lena wants to return home, while Meryem's hope is reach Europe.

The Guest: Aleppo-Istanbul is a co-production between the Turkish companies; AndaƧ Film Productions, Istanbul Digital (ID) and Istanbul Film Production (IFP); and the Jordanian company Pan East Media. The film project has received financial support from the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. MAD Solutions is handling the film's distribution in the Arab world.