Palestinian film 'It Must Be Heaven' (2019) won Best Film and Best Director (Elia Suleiman) at 4th Annual Critics Awards for Arab Films in Cannes.

The semi-autobiographical comedy is directed, written and stars Elia Suleiman as the filmmaker "travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine," the film's brief on IMDb reveals.

'It Must Be Heaven' was Palestine’s submission for the Academy Awards.

Suleiman directed multi-award winning films such as Divine Intervention (2002) and The Time That Remains (2009), among others.

Organised by the Arab Cinema Centre (ACC), the winners of the Annual Critics Awards are usually announced during a ceremony held on the sidelines of the Cannes International Film Festival.

With this year's Cannes festival cancelled, the winners were revealed during an online Marche du Film held between 22 and 26 June.

The Arab Cinema Centre was founded in 2015 with the aim to provide the Arab filmmaking industry a professional window to connect with counterparts from all over the world through a number of events that it organises.

In 2017, the ACC launched the Annual Critics Awards on the margins of the Cannes International Film Festival, co-organised with MAD Solutions.

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