Amr Gamal‘s THE BURDENED added another accolade to its trophy shelf on Saturday, February 25th, winning the Amnesty International Film Award — which comes with a cash prize of €5,000 — during the Independent Juries Award Ceremony that was held as part of the activities of the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).
The film's crew was present at the ceremony, including the director, who received the award. The Berlinale also announced on the same day that THE BURDENED placed second in the running for the Panorama Section‘s Audience Award, which Gamal will be honored for in a second ceremony that will be held on February 26th.
“I am truly humbled by the audience's positive reception to the film. THE BURDENED was a labor of love, dedication, and persistence to shed light on one story of many in a country under fire. I'm glad that the audiences at the Berlinale felt like we did it justice. We certainly did our best,” commented Gamal after receiving the award.
THE BURDENED — the first Yemeni film to play in the official selection of the Berlinale — is based on a true story set in Aden, Yemen. The film follows Ahmed, Isra'a, and their three children after they both lose their jobs as a result of an economic crisis.
After the mother discovers she is carrying a fourth child, the beleaguered parents try to get an abortion despite their community's conservative stance, forcing the family to make tough decisions to survive.
The film is directed by Amr Gamal, who shares screenwriting credits with Mazen Refaat,and stars Khaled Hamdan, Abeer Mohammed, Samah Alamrani, and Awsam Abdulrahman.
It also brings together Yemen, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia in a landmark co-production that was first brought to international attention at the 2022 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where it earned the Works in Progress Post-Production Development Award in the festival's industry sidebar, Eastern Promises, with the platform's jury expressing its admiration for “the director's brave approach in tackling sensitive subjects against all odds.”
MAD Solutions is managing the film's distribution in the Arab world, while Films Boutique is managing international sales.
THE BURDENED is co-produced by Mohsen Alkhalifi, Mohammed Alomda, and Amjad Abu Alala (Station Films) — the filmmaker who helmed the award-winning drama YOU WILL DIE AT TWENTY, which was submitted to the Academy Awards' Best International Feature Film Category in 2020 as Sudan's first-ever Oscars' submission.
Amr Gamal (b.1983, Poland) is an independent Yemeni film and theater director. In 2003, he received the President's Award for Playwriting. In 2005, Gamal established the Khaleej Aden Theater Troupe and has written and directed all of the troupe's theater productions since.
His play MA'K NAZEL became the first Yemeni play to be performed in Europe (Berlin) after its big success in Yemen. In the spring of 2018, production began for his first feature film 10 DAYS BEFORE THE WEDDING. The film premiered in Aden in the summer, becoming the first film to open commercially in Yemen in three decades.
