»Shahid« wins two awards from independent juries at the Berlinale. The forum contribution by director Narges Kalhor and producer Michael Kalb won the Arthouse Cinema Award 2024 (awarded by CICEA Confédération des Internationale des Cinémas d'Art et d'Essai) and the Caligari Film Prize 2024 (awarded by the Federal Association of Municipal Film Work) at the weekend.
Narges Kalhor received the Caligari Film Prize for »a complex, multi-voiced work« that leads »into the depths of one's own biography and the collective past«. Since 1986, the prize, endowed with 4,000 euros, has honored a stylistically and thematically innovative film from the Berlinale Forum program, highlighting the special importance of this section of the Berlin International Film Festival for cultural cinema work in Germany.
The international arthouse cinema association CICAE also honored »Shahid«. The CICAE Art Cinema Award is presented by an international jury of arthouse cinema operators and aims to bring high-quality films to arthouse cinemas.
Synopsis
In her hybrid debut film »Shahid«, director Narges Kalhor plays with documentary, fictional and performative elements outside of common genres and tells her personal story: A filmmaker wants to have her nickname Shahid, which means martyr, removed and meets her great-grandfather - who died a martyr. »Shahid« is a personal film that questions all kinds of radical ideologies - and doesn't always take itself too seriously.
We supported the production with 100,000 euros. We congratulate the team!