Montreal: Siddiq Barmak’s Osama (Afghanistan/Japan/Ireland), an emotional portrait of a brave Afghan woman and her daughter’s struggle for survivor, is the winner of the $10,000 DvColor best feature award at the 32nd edition of the Montreal International Festival of New Cinema and New Media. FCMM unspooled Oct. 9-19.

Described as the first real post-Taliban film, Canadian rights to Osama were only recently acquired by TVA Films.

News of the win was picked up by agencies throughout the Middle East and by CNN.COM, which ran an online story.

This year’s festival was characterized by a sense of international adventure, and many of the films were from lesser-known and first-time directors.

FCMM master classes were a huge success. A spokesperson for the festival says 500 were turned away for the Peter Greenaway session. Greenaway’s Antwerp, the third installment of his HD/multimedia trilogy The Tulse Lupper Suitcases, does not have Canadian distribution.

Typically, very few of this year’s FCMM prize-winning films have been acquired for Canadian or North American distribution, including Narjiss Nejjar’s Cry No More/Les Yeux Secs (France/Morocco), an exploration of prostitution in Morocco and the winner of the $5,000 Volkswagen Audience Award. Cry No More was also well received at the ’03 Toronto International Film Festival.

$50,000 production grant

One of this year’s FCMM highlights was the SODEC Sprint for your Script Prize competition.

Five young Quebec screenwriters were sequestered during the festival with the mission of completing a short film script. The winner, Lisa Sfriso, receives a $50,000 production grant, an additional $1,000 as winner of the Belanger Sauve development special prize, film stock, assorted equipment, and a pre-licence from pubcaster Tele-Quebec.

Other selected FCMM prize winners include:

* Hakim Belabbes’s Threads/Les Fibres de l’ame (Morocco/U.S.) – Jury’s Special Mention

* Julie Bertucelli’s Depuis qu’Otar est parti (France) – $5,000 Radio-Canada Best Screenplay Award

* Quebec director’s Claude Fortin’s ‘mock documentary’ 100% Bio, distributed by Cinema Libre – Jury’s Special Mention

* Victor Kossakovsky’s Hush/Tishe (Russia) – the $5,000 NFB Best Documentary Award

* Ines Oliveira’s O Nome E.O.N.I.M (Portugal) – the $5,000 Vision Globale Best Short Award

* Daniel Cross, Eric ‘Roach’ Denis, Brett Gaylor and Anuj Khosla’s Homeless Street Archive – the $5,000 Bell Fund Prize – Cyberpitch

FCMM’s principal private-sector sponsors include Volkswagen and Fondation Daniel Langlois pour l’art, la science et la technologie.

A complete list of 2003 winners is posted on the FCMM website.

-www.fcmm.com

-www.fondation-langlois.org