Firas Khoury's ALAM took home the Best Debut Feature Film Award at the Tetouan Mediterranean Film Festival — which concluded its 28th edition on March 10th — raising its tally of international awards to seven.
Written and directed by Firas Khoury, ALAM — starring Mahmood Bakri, Sereen Khass, Saleh Bakri, Mohammad Karaki, Ahmad Zaghmouri, and Muhammad Abed Elrahman — follows the story of a Palestinian teenager named Tamer.
Tamer and his friends lead typical teenage lives until one day, he is swept off his feet by the arrival of the beautiful Maysaa. As he grows closer to her, Tamer agrees to take part in a mysterious and life-changing operation dubbed ‘Alam.’
ALAM Arab world premiered at the 2022 Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), succeeding with flying colors and taking home three awards at the festival’s closing, those being the Golden Pyramid Award — the festival's top accolade for outstanding films in the international competition — the Best Actor Award for Palestinian actor Mahmood Bakri, and Youssef Cherif Rizkallah's Audience Award.
The movie then held its world premiere at the 47th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival's Contemporary World Cinema Category and featured at the Rome Film Festival.
After that, it won the Young Jury Award at the Brussels’ Cinemamed Festival and the Best Asian Film Award at the 27th International Film Festival of Kerala, where the director Firas Khoury also received the Rajata Chakoram for Best Debut Director.
ALAM was also featured in the Festival Favorites Category of the 2022 edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival.
The film garnered worldwide acclaim, with Variety's Alissa Simon saying: "Khoury’s convincing and engaging screenplay perfectly captures teenage fearlessness and bravado, along with a certain cluelessness about how the real world works."
Meanwhile, Screen Daily’s Fionnuala Halligan described it as "a coming-of-age drama which hews to the conventions, Alam nonetheless offers a fresh perspective."
ALAM is co-distributed by MAD Solutions and Lagoonie Film Production across the Arab world.
Additionally, the flick received a grant from the Doha Film Institute and a $20,000 script development grant from the Abu Dhabi Film Festival's SANAD Fund. It was also chosen to participate in the Cinéfondation Workshop at the 2017 edition of the Cannes Film Festival.
The film also featured at the 2019 Venice GAP-Financing Market and received a $10,000 grant from Cairo Film Connection — the CIFF's Co-Production Market — and was featured at the Atlas Workshops of the Marrakech International Film Festival.
Founded back in 1986, the Tetouan Mediterranean Film Festival in Morocco aims to promote and highlight the great talents and films coming from Mediterranean countries. The festival holds several competitions for feature, short, and documentary films.
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