Fresh off winning Locarno, Palestinian featurette UPSHOT heralds this year’s Carthage Film Festival!

release date December 05 2024

Running from the 14th to the 21st of December, the 35th edition of the Carthage Film Festival has selected UPSHOT– a poignant Palestinian featurette by Maha Haj— as the festival's opening film.

Before heading for the ancient and sublime Carthage, the featurette held a phenomenal world premiere at the celebrated 77th Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland; where it won the Golden Pardino award, as part of the Corti d'Autore Competition, as well as the Independent Youth Jury Award. It also recently won the Best Film Award at the Sharjah Film Festival, the Audience Award at the FrontDoc Film Festival in Italy, and the top prize— a Golden Star Award— in the Short Films competition at Egypt’s esteemed El Gouna Film Festival.

Set against the backdrop of Gaza's enduring strife, Palestinian director Maha Haj weaves a world where her characters can escape pain and loss, telling the story of Suleiman and Lubna — a couple who retreat to a mist-shrouded, isolated farm as they try to cope with unspeakable loss.

Through the alchemy of storytelling, they concoct a parallel reality free of pain; but when a journalist intrudes upon their sanctuary, wielding the blunt force of truth, the fragile illusion they've constructed threatens to unravel.

A Palestinian-French-Italian co-production, UPSHOT stars renowned Palestinian actors Mohammed Bakri— who received numerous awards for his works, including the Career Achievement Award at the El Gouna Film Festival and Berlinale’s Free Speech Bear Award— Areen Omari, and Amer Hlehel. The film is also lensed by Augustin Bonnet and edited by Veronique Lange with production design handled by Saher Dwairy.

UPSHOT is produced by Ramallah-based company August Films with Hanna Atallah and Ronza Kamel — who have also recently seen the premiere of another Palestinian title THANK YOU FOR BANKING WITH US — and is being distributed worldwide by MAD World and in all Arabic-speaking territories by MAD Distribution.

Commenting on her featurette, Haj said “UPSHOT is both a lamentation and a testament to the indomitable power of the human spirit. There are no easy answers, no political solutions to assuage the anguish of parents who have lost everything. And so, it unfolds in a realm unbound by time or place — a poignant reflection of the irreparable loss that defies earthly confines.”

Maha Haj is a filmmaker with a diverse background in English and Arabic literature who made her directorial debut with the short film ORANGES followed by the poignant documentary BEHIND THESE WALLS.

Her first foray into feature filmmaking, however, came in 2015 with PERSONAL AFFAIRS — a critically acclaimed work that was selected for the 69th Cannes’ Un Certain Regard. Her last feature, MEDITERRANEAN FEVER, won the Best Screenplay Prize in the 75th Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard and was selected to represent Palestine in the 94th Academy Awards’ Best International Feature race.

The Carthage Film Festival is set to run from the 14th to the 21st of December.