Art & Culture

All of the Winners from the 2026 Amman International FIlm Festival

BYMeriem Belhiba

August 4, 2026

There could hardly have been a more mesmerizing place to end the Amman International Film Festival (AIFF). Perched above downtown on Jabal al-Qal’a, the Amman Citadel carries the city’s history in layers, from the Bronze and Iron Ages through the Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic periods, with old Amman stretching below and the Roman Theatre at the foot of the hill. On Aug. 3, the site hosted the closing of the festival’s seventh and most successful edition yet, following nine days of screenings, conversations and industry events across the city that drew the highest audience attendance since AIFF was founded.

Held under the theme “Beyond the Frame,” this year’s edition continued AIFF’s focus on first works, bringing emerging Arab and international filmmakers into conversation with Jordanian audiences. Before the awards were announced, Omani artist Shayma Al Mughairy performed a live sand art piece, followed by a contemporary interpretation of traditional dabka from the Majdal Popular Dance Troupe.

Then came the films and the awards.

In the Arab Feature-Length Narrative Film Competition, Lebanese filmmaker Cyril Aris’ A Sad and Beautiful World emerged as one of the evening’s biggest winners, taking both the Black Iris and the Audience Award. Set against decades of upheaval in Lebanon, the film follows Nino and Yasmina from childhood into adulthood as their relationship repeatedly collides with a country in which imagining a future has become increasingly difficult. Hasan Akil, who plays Nino, also received Best First-Time Lead Actor.

The Jury Award in the same category went to Iraqi filmmaker Hasan Hadi’s The President’s Cake. Set in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s rule and years of international sanctions, the film follows nine-year-old Lamia after she is selected at school to bake a cake for the president’s birthday. What sounds like a childhood assignment becomes a desperate search for ingredients her family can barely afford, allowing Hadi to view dictatorship and deprivation through the everyday logic of a child.

Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Rashad received Best First-Time Scriptwriter for The Settlement, a drama following two brothers who begin working at the factory where their father died in an accident. As they enter the same industrial world that took him from them, questions around labour, responsibility, and survival begin to complicate what they have been told about his death.

The Best First-Time Lead Actress award went to Tunisia’s Eya Bellagha for Where the Wind Comes From, directed by Amel Guellaty. Bellagha plays Alyssa, a rebellious 19-year-old who sets off across southern Tunisia with her shy childhood friend Mehdi after an art competition offers them a possible escape from the futures awaiting them. What follows is a playful, dreamlike journey through friendship, imagination, and the restless desire of a generation to create possibilities beyond the lives already mapped out for them.

In the Arab Feature-Length Documentary Film Competition, Palestinian filmmaker Alex Bakri won the Black Iris for Habibi Hussein. Built from footage Bakri began shooting during the NGO-led restoration of Cinema Jenin, the documentary shifts attention away from the international project itself and towards Hussein Darbi, the veteran Palestinian projectionist whose knowledge, labour, and memories of the cinema were gradually pushed to the margins.

Syrian filmmaker Tawfik Sabouni’s The Other Side of the Sun dominated the rest of the category, receiving the Jury Award, FIPRESCI Award, and Audience Award. Made after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the film follows five survivors as they return to Saydnaya prison and reenact experiences of detention and torture, transforming a site associated with disappearance and silence into a space for testimony.

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In the Arab Short Film Competition, Algerian filmmaker Oumnia Hanader’s Bimo received the Black Iris, while Moroccan director Sanaa El Alaoui’s Aicha took the Jury Award.

Jordanian cinema had a particularly visible presence in the category. Yassmina Karajah’s Ambush received Best Jordanian Film. Moving through Amman’s nightlife, markets, and techno scene, the short brings together two strangers whose paths cross over the course of the night, turning the capital itself into an essential part of their encounter.

Abdallah Al-Ziyadi received a Special Mention for Passport Wedding, which follows Hajar, a Palestinian widow living in a refugee camp in Amman, after her daughter Ruwa earns a scholarship to study in the United Kingdom. When an expired temporary passport threatens the opportunity, what should be a bureaucratic procedure becomes a much larger struggle shaped by displacement, legal status, and the lengths a mother will go to protect her daughter’s future.

The Audience Award went to another Jordanian filmmaker, Aysha Shahaltough, for Cleanse the Streets. The film follows two sisters speeding through an empty landscape in a blue pickup truck as they attempt to escape their father’s wrath following a frightening incident, only to discover that distance cannot necessarily free them from what they are running from.

In the Non-Arab Feature-Length Narrative Film Competition, South African filmmaker Zamo Mkhwanazi’s Laundry took both the Black Iris and the Audience Award. Set during apartheid, Mkhwanazi’s debut follows an ordinary Black family, finding the politics of apartheid in work, music, relationships and the everyday act of continuing to live under an oppressive system.

Belgian filmmakers Charlotte Devillers and Arnaud Dufeys received the Jury Award for We Believe You. The tightly contained drama follows Alice as she enters a courtroom fighting to protect her children from their father, knowing that the way she speaks, behaves and tells their story may determine whether the system believes her.

“We want a cinema that dares to make bold choices, one that moves forward, stumbles and tries again,” said Festival Director Nada Doumani. “That is what we hope to see in the years to come, not stories that shy away from challenges, but stories that refuse to let those challenges become the only narrative we tell.”

It was an idea reflected in a winning slate that moved from an Iraqi child searching for cake ingredients and a Palestinian projectionist fighting to remain inside his own cinema, to a South African family living through apartheid and Syrian survivors returning to one of the most notorious prisons of the Assad era.

After a record-breaking edition, AIFF ended where it began: with first films and new voices, this time from high above the city that had spent nine days watching them.

All of the Winners from the 2026 Amman International FIlm Festival

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All of the Winners from the 2026 Amman International FIlm Festival

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