‘3000 Nights’ wins two awards at Carthage Film Festival

AMMAN — Jordanian feature “3000 Nights” has won two awards at the Carthage Film Festival (JCC), with its collection of awards from international festivals now totalling 17, its distributor said on Sunday.

Mai Masri’s film won the “Bronz Tanit” within the Feature Film competition (5,000 Tunisian dinars) and the “Screenplay Prize” for a feature film within the Official Competition (5,000 Tunisian dinars), distributor MAD Solutions said in a statement.

The festival’s closing ceremony was held on Saturday night.

First established in 1966, the JCC is the longest-standing film festival in the Arab world and Africa. 

The festival was hosted every two years until it became an annual event since 2014. 

This year’s edition marked the festival’s 50th anniversary.

Masri’s film, inspired by a true story and shot in a real prison in Jordan, follows a newly-wed Palestinian schoolteacher who is wrongfully imprisoned in an Israeli jail, where she gives birth to a son.

The film has been nominated to represent Jordan at the 89th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film Category.

Masri was born in Amman, to a Palestinian father and an American mother, and has directed and produced several documentaries that have won over 60 international awards.

Most recently, “3000 Nights” won the Kantara France Bleu RCFM and the Hors les Murs awards at the Festival du Film et des Cultures Méditerranéennes in Bastia, according to MAD Solutions. 

Palestinian actress Maisa Abdelhadi won the Best Actress Award for her role in the film at the closing ceremony of the second Mediterranean Film Festival of Annaba in Algeria. 

“3000 Nights” has also won the Best Feature Film Award and the Audience Award at the Malmö Arab Film Festival in Sweden, the Audience Award at the Arab Camera Festival in Rotterdam, and another Audience Award at the Mizna’s Twin Cities Arab Film Festival in Minnesota, the US.

Moreover, the film has won the Tao Edu Young Prize at Taormina Film Festival in Italy, the Youth Jury Award at the International Film Festival and Forum for Human Rights in Switzerland, and the Audience Award at the Annonay International Film Festival in France. 

The 103-minute feature — a co-production between Jordan, Palestine, France, the UAE, Qatar and Lebanon — also won the Special Jury Award at the Washington, DC, International Film Festival, the Jury Award at the 8th Women’s International Film and Television Showcase in the US, and the Meeting Point Audience Award at the 60th Valladolid International Film Festival in Spain as well as the Youth Jury Award and the Women’s Jury Award at the Paysages des Cineastes in France.

The film’s world premiere was held at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it was also screened in the US within the Palm Springs International Film Festival in California.