After making it to the Oscar's® list of nominations for 2016, Basil Khalil's AVE MARIA is set to participate at Tripoli Film Festival in Lebanon (20-27 April). The film has been selected to contend in the International Short Movies Competition at the festival.

AVE MARIA had a successful run at 100 international film festivals, gathering 17 awards in just 10 months. The film began its journey with its world premiere in the Official Selection at Cannes Film Festival in May 2015.

Recently, AVE MARIA won the Audience Award at Green Caravan Film Festival (GCFF) in Kuwait,
Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival in USA and Panorama des cinémas du Maghreb et du Moyen-Orient in France, in addition to a Certificate of Appreciation at the 4th Luxor Arab & European Film Festival. Within its release in the USA as one of the Oscars®- nominated films of 2016, Basil Khalil's Palestinian short film AVE MARIA, have generated more than $2.8 million revenues.

MAD Solutions, AVE MARIA's distributor in the Arab world, revealed that the film had a commercial release in the Arab world, alongside Jordanian Naji Abu Nowar's film Theeb. This is the first distribution initiative of its kind in the region.

Since 2014, Tripoli Film Festival is one of the most important cinematic events conceived to ameliorate the image of the city. The Tripoli Film Festival aims to enrich the local cultural environment in Tripoli, promote the rich cultural heritage of Tripoli and its local artists, in addition to branding and marketing Tripoli and its region as a highly promising tourist destination. The third edition that will be held in April 2016 will include national and international filmmakers, international festival programmers and critics.

AVE MARIA is a 14-minute comedy that tells the story of an order of Palestinian nuns living in the middle of the West Bank wilderness. Their daily routine of silence and prayer is disrupted when a family of Israeli settlers breaks down right outside their convent, just as the Sabbath is beginning. The family need to get home but can't operate the phone, and the Nuns have taken a vow of silence.

Screening times of AVE MARIA at Tripoli Film Festival in Lebanon (GMT +3):

Monday, 25th of April in Safadi Cultural Center at 08:00 pm
Tuesday, 26th of April in Beit el Fan at 11:00 am