Basil Khalil's short film AVE MARIA received the Best Short Film award at Tripoli Film Festival in Lebanon. The award marks the film's 20th award after participating in over 100 film festival around the world, in addition to the Oscar's® nomination for Live Action Short Film in 2016.

The film began its journey, gathering 20 awards in 11 months, with its world premiere in the Official Selection at Cannes Film Festival in May 2015. With its theatrical release in over 400 screen in the USA and Europe part of the 2016 Oscar® nominated short films program, Basil Khalil's Palestinian short film AVE MARIA generated more than $2.8 million in revenues from the USA alone.

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. 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.