(Photo: still from 3000 Nights)
After winning the TaoEdu Young Prize award, Mai Masri’s film 3000 Nights has added yet another prestigious recognition to its large collection of numerous international awards.
TaoEdu young prize is one of the awards that is given to young filmmakers at the Taormina Film Festival.
Lanched in 1955, this year in its 62nd edition, the festival took place between 10 and 18 June, in two cities: Messina and Taormina.
This is Italy's oldest film festival, which in it's long history hosted many renowned figures from the world of international cinema, among them: Elizabeth Taylor, Marlene Dietrich, Sophia Loren, Marlon Brando, Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, among others.
Among the honoured directors of the Taormina festival are figures such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ingmar Bergman, Hugh Hudson, Giuseppe Tornatore, Krzysztof Zanussi and dozens of others.
Directed by May Masri, and co-produced by Palestine, France, Jordan, UAE, Qatar and Lebanon, the film 3,000 Nights centers on a young newly-wed Palestinian school teacher who is jailed in a top-security Israeli prison where she eventually gives birth.
The film made its world premiere in September 2015 at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). It then made its Arab world premiere in December 2015 as part of the Dubai International Film Festival’s 12th edition where it participated in the Muhr Arab Feature Films Competition.
The film also toured across Palestine right after the film's US premiere as part of the Palm Springs International Film Festival in early January.
In February, 3,000 Nights was shown at the European Film Market at the Berlin International Film Festival.
The film was screened in Egypt earlier this year, when it was hosen to open the Luxor Arab and European Film Festival, an event which took place between 30 January and 5 February. Earlier this month it was screened in Cairo's Zawya.
During the press conference for the Luxor Arab and European Film Festival, the Palestinian director May Masri said her film 3,000 Nights, was shot in a real prison, without any set decor, as a way of preserving the film's authenticity. Masri added that the jail where they filmed was neither in Palestine nor Jordan.
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