The Arab Cinema Centre (ACC) has announced the winners of its third Annual Critics Awards during a ceremony held on the sidelines of the current Cannes festival. The winners are from five different Arab countries and were selected by 75 film critics from 34 countries. The awards are given to feature and documentary films that premiered at international film festivals outside of the Arab world during 2018, and at least one of the production companies must be Arab. The Best Film Award went to Yomeddine by Egyptian director Abu Bakr Shawky, while Nadine Labaki won best director for her Lebanese film Capernaum. The award for Best Documentary went to Of Fathers and Sons by Syrian director Talal Derki. The Moroccan film Sofia won two awards; best screenplay for Meryem Benm'Barek and best actress for Maha Alemi. Tunisian Mohamed Dhrif won the Best Actor Award for his role in Weldi. The ACC also presented its Achievement Award for Film Critics to Lebanese Film Critic Ibrahim Al-Ariss and American Film Critic Deborah Young, through which the ACC honours Arab and international film critics who have a great impact on the Arab film industry. "The winners of this year's edition of the Annual Critics Awards show diversity that reflects the growing Arab film industry in the past few years, which explains the huge Arab presence in most of the competitions of this year's Cannes Film Festival. This is an indication that the development curve is on the rise," Alaa Karkouti, film analyst, co-founder of the ACC and CEO of MAD Solutions, said in a press release. The Annual Critics Awards was launched three years ago on the margins of the 70th Cannes Film Festival, organised by MAD Solutions and the ACC, a non-profit organisation and an international promotional platform for Arab cinema.
