Laila Abbas’s debut feature Thank You for Banking With Us! swept top honors at the 9th Critics Awards for Arab Films, held May 17 during the Cannes Film Festival. The Palestinian director received Best Film and Best Director for her drama, which exposes gendered inheritance rules under Islamic Sharia law as two sisters race against time to claim their father’s estate.
Morocco’s Everybody Loves Touda earned Best Screenplay for Nabil Ayouch and Maryam Touzani, while lead actress Nisrin Erradi won Best Actress for her portrayal of a village poet determined to chase her dreams despite familial obligations. The film premiered last year in Cannes’s Premiere section and drew praise for its compassionate telling of a woman’s quest in rural Morocco.
Adam Bessa took Best Actor for Ghost Trail, a French-Tunisian thriller in which his character tracks Syrian regime figures across Europe and confronts his own former captor. His performance was lauded for conveying both rage and vulnerability. Amin Bouhafa won Best Music for his evocative score on Aïcha, and editors Noaz Deshe and Felipe Guerrero shared Best Editing for the Romanian-Colombian film Xoftex. Egyptian cinematographer Mostafa El Kashef received Best Cinematography for The Village Next to Paradise, noted for its immersive depiction of rural landscapes.
In nonfiction categories, the Palestinian documentary No Other Land—directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor—claimed Best Documentary for its intimate look at displacement. Palestinian filmmaker Maha Haj won Best Short Film with Upshot, a story of family ties under pressure.
A panel of 281 critics from 75 countries cast votes. The Arab Cinema Center, in partnership with MAD Solutions, the International Emerging Film Talent Association and NEFT, organized the awards to highlight notable Arab filmmaking from the past year.
