Almost a year from the moment it was screened for the first time at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, “Eshtebak” (Clash) still receives awards from its participation in international film festivals. The film won the main award of the Cinepolitica International Film Festival in Romania.
The festival is dedicated to films with predominantly political themes, whether features, shorts, fictions, or documentary films. During the awards ceremony, the festival’s board announced Clash as the winner of its greatest award, which also includes a monetary prize of €1,500 granted to the film’s director by the Romanian Cultural Institute.
The film was awarded the Suvarna Chakoram Award, as well as the audience prize (Rajatha Chakoram) last year.
This comes after it received another 10 awards from different international film festivals, including the Critics Prize at the 16th Mediterranean Film Festival of Brussels and the Golden Pram Award at the Zagreb International Film Festival in Croatia.
Moreover, it received four awards at the Carthage Film Festival in its 27th round, namely the Bronze Tanit (the second prize in the Official Feature Film Competition), Best Photography, Best Editing, and the African University Award for Cinematic Criticism for Best Feature Film (Nagiba El-Hamrony Award).
The film also received three awards at the Valladolid International Film Festival, including Best New Director (Mohamed Diab), Best Director of Photography (Ahmed Gabr), and the Sociograph Award, which is voted for by the audience.
The film additionally took part in the BFI London Film Festival in its 60th round. Moreover, it received the Grand Prix award at the Festival du Film Arabe de Fameck/Val de Fensch in France.
Clash tells the story of a group of people belonging to different social classes and sharing different ideologies, who find themselves inside a police van after being arrested at protests that hit Egypt’s streets during the 30 June uprising.
The plot features clashes between the diverse group of people, made up of different-minded people, including Muslim Brotherhood supporters and opponents, while they are stuck in a small vehicle on one of the hottest days of the summer.
The film is co-written by Diab’s brothers, Khaled and Mohammed, and co-produced by Arab and European companies.
