ONE FUTURE PRIZE 2011 of the Interfilm Academy Munich

The Jury of the Interfilm Academy Munich has given the ONE FUTURE PRIZE 2011 to the film

Cairo Exit
by Hesham Issawi, Egypt/Germany 2011 

Motivation:
Hesham Issawis  existential drama Cairo Exit is a story in which the love between a Coptic Christian woman Amal and a Muslim man Terek unfolds with a powerful inter-religious force. The two families are facing the threat of suffocation in the ruined everyday hopeless milieu of the social and religious hostility, in which even the dreams are unable to offer a way out. The film is literally pregnant with the aesthetics of contrasts. Although the characters in film are pounded by the world of poverty and pain, their struggle emanates the humanity characterized by integrity and dignity that makes the Arabic Spring possible. Through separation, pain, hopelessness and death only the colour of the ocean seems to reconcile heaven and hell as mutually reflective images. Even the exit to paradise is tainted by the question of whether it can be shared by two people of different convictions.

Jury members:
Pastor Eckart Bruchner (Chairman/ Germany)
Galina Antoschewskaja (Russia)
Bhagu T. Chellaney (India)
Ileana Cosmovici (Italy/Germany)
Wang Ai Qun (China)
Dr. Gatis Lidums (Latvia)
Giuseppe Maruozzo (Italy)
Christine Weissbarth (CM/Austria)