Short film AVE MARIA by Palestinian filmmaker Basil Khalil is announced winner of the Best Muhr Short Award at Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), raising the tally to 10 awards. The award was handed to Khalil in the closing ceremony of the festival's 12th edition which hosted the film's Arab world premiere.

Director Basil Khalil commented, "This award is even more special to us, not only because it's our 10th award, but because it's from an Arab festival, and it's proven the humour I tried to capture in AVE MARIA is truly universal".

The Palestinian short has made it amongst the 10 short-listed live action shorts for the Academy Awards® in 2016 and is vying to make it to the final five nominees, which would be a first time ever for a Palestinian short.

The 14 minute comedy tells the story of the Nuns of the 'Sisters of Mercy' Convent, in the middle of the West Bank wilderness, who have their daily routine of silence and prayer disrupted when a family of Jewish settlers come knocking at their door for help after crashing into the convent's wall.

AVE MARIA had its world premiere in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and continued within 50 festivals in 26 countries. So far, the film has garnered 10 awards, all within 6 months only.

The title of the film, "AVE MARIA", is Latin for "Hail Mary", an important Roman Catholic prayer. The film was written by Basil Khalil and Daniel Yáñez, and stars Maria Zreik, Huda Al Imam, Shady Srour, Ruth Farhi and Maya Koren. The film is produced by Incognito Films in Paris in collaboration with Flying Moon Filmproduktion, with the support of Robert Bosch Stiftung Fund in Germany.