The Sharjah Art Foundation announced the winners of the first edition of the Feature Film Support Fund grant, within the Sharjah Film Platform. The grant, amounting to 500,000 AED, is equally distributed between directors Annemarie Jacir for her film “Palestine 36” and Mohammad Waleed Ali for his film “Colored Sweets”.

The film “Palestine 36”, officially nominated to represent the State of Palestine at this year’s Oscars, tells the story of a young man (Yousef) experiencing the political unrest in the streets of Jerusalem and Jaffa during the 1936 revolution against colonial rule. This revolution is one of the largest and longest anti-colonial uprisings against the British Empire. The film is considered Jacir’s most prominent project to date and stars actors Hiam Abbass, Saleh Bakri, Yasmin Al Masri, and Jeremy Irons. It will premiere tomorrow at the Toronto International Film Festival.

As for the feature film “Colored Sweets”, it is Mohammad Waleed Ali’s first film, currently in production. It tells the story of two siblings living in a remote village in Kashmir during the winter of 1995. As Eid al-Fitr approaches, they embark on a journey to taste the colorful sweets they have only heard about in stories. The film is filled with laughter and wonder, narrating a tender tale of patience, poverty, and the resilience and flexibility of children amid the conflicts of the 1990s.

The grant jury included award-winning director and media professor at the American University of Sharjah, Suhail Dahdal; award-winning director and screenplay consultant, Suha Arraf; founder of Sudan Film Factory and president of the Sudan Independent Cinema Festival, Talal Afifi; and the director of the Sharjah Art Foundation, Nawar Al Qasimi.

The committee unanimously decided to distribute the grant equally between the two films, due to the urgent and impactful stories they present, promising to leave a lasting impact on Arab, Asian, and global cinema.

Annemarie Jacir lives and works in Palestine. She has written, directed, and produced more than 16 films, with premieres at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, Rotterdam, and Toronto film festivals. All her three feature films were officially selected to represent Palestine at the Oscars.

Mohammad Waleed Ali was born in Syria, studied media at Damascus University, then studied film directing and screenplay writing at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute in India and the Busan Asian Film Academy in South Korea.