The movie (The Exhausted) by Yemeni director Amr Gamal won a new award from the 44th Durban International Film Festival, which concluded its works today, Sunday, in South Africa.
The jury of the festival, which is organized by the Center for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, awarded the best screenplay award to the film’s writers, Mazen Refaat and Amr Gamal.
Twenty films competed in the feature film competition at the festival, which was held from July 20 to 30 in the coastal city of Durban.
Mazen Refaat told Reuters that this is the latest international award for the filmmakers, who won this year the Special Arbitration Award from the Taipei Film Festival, an award from the Valencia Festival, and two awards from the Berlin Festival.
The film stars Khaled Hamdan, Abeer Muhammad, Samah Al-Omrani, Islam Selim, Rou’a Al-Hamshari and Omar Elias. It revolves around a married couple who suffer because of the difficult economic conditions in Yemen while raising three children. When the wife discovers that she is pregnant again, she begins to think of aborting herself, despite her realization of the social consequences that may result from this act.
This is the second film by the director, who was born in the city of Aden, after his film (Ten Days Before the Wedding), which met with public success when it was shown in 2018 and won numerous awards from international film festivals.
