Younan, directed by Amir Fakher El-Din, won this year’s Arab Critics Association Award in the European Film category. The award, now in its seventh year, is presented in collaboration with European Film Promotion and the Arab Film Center.
The announcement was made on Saturday at the El Gouna Film Festival awards ceremony. Fakher El-Din was unable to attend the festival in person, but sent a video message thanking the judges, ACC and EFP for what he called “a great recognition”. He added, “I’m very touched to see that ‘Younan’ has been accepted by Arab critics as well. In a way, it may mean that the film has finally found its way home.”
Fakher Eldin also thanked Dorothee Beinemeyer, main producer and long-time collaborator of Red Balloon Films, who accepted the award for El Gouna.
Director Beinemeyer said, “Yunan is Amir Fakher El-Din’s second feature film. Like his first film, The Stranger, it is slow, quiet and melancholic. Amir’s story is not the loudest, but the most delicate and poetic. His movies force me to slow down, take time to think, and digest what I see. But what’s happening is that they’re so rich. You just find a new angle, a different layer every time. Amer is just a great observer and storyteller, with a very old and wise soul in the body of a young man. I’m really looking forward to making the third installment of our trilogy.”
“Yunan” follows an Arab man who arrives on a remote island in the North Sea looking to end his life. Instead, he faces a conservative and marginalized German community and the overwhelming forces of nature, and encounters events that shake his resolve and gradually reshape his perspective. What begins as a solitary act unfolds into unexpected encounters with people and places, gradually developing into a quiet yet intense philosophical exchange that explores themes of exile, trauma, and rebirth.
The film was part of this year’s Berlin Competition and won the Golden Firebird Award for Best Actor (Georges Habaz) and Best Actress (Hannah Schigura) at the Hong Kong International Film Festival. Film festival.
“Yunan” was produced by Beinemeyer at Red Balloon in Hamburg, Germany, along with Canada’s Microclimat Film and Italy’s Intramovie. Co-producers are Fresco Films, Metafora Productions and Tabi360. Its global sales will be handled by Intramovies and MENA sales by Mad Solutions.
