Art & Culture

All the Arab Winners From the 2026 Venice International Film Festival

BYYassine Hariss

September 14, 2026

And just like that, the 83rd edition of the annual Venice International Film Festival is over, bringing 10-days worth of cinema to an end. This year, to our pleasant surprise, brought significant attention to the region we call home, awarding filmmakers, actors, and industry insiders from our neck of the woods for their recent contributions to the silver screen industry.

There’s probably no better place to start than with the Golden Lion for Best Film, the festival’s highest and most prestigious accolade, which went to Danish-Egyptian filmmaker May el-Toukhy for KVINDE UKENDT (WOMAN UNKNOWN). And she wasn’t the only member of the film’s team to leave Venice with an award. Mathilde Arcel, the film’s lead, also took home Best Actress, making it a pretty successful night all around for the feature.

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Set in a post-Second World War context, according to its official synopsis on IMDB, the plot follows Marie, a former housekeeper, who “plans an extravagant dinner party for her engagement to the household’s patriarch. As preparations unfold, hidden aspects of her past begin to surface, threatening to disrupt the celebration.”

Meanwhile, in the short film section, this year’s top prize went to Moroccan-Lebanese director Shaden Safieddine Tazi for QUELQUES INSTANTS DE BONHEUR (A FEW MOMENTS OF HAPPINESS). The 18-minute documentary follows a young Lebanese filmmaker living in Paris as she watches the war in Lebanon happen from thousands of kilometres away. Told through screen recordings, family voices, and moments of silence, the film captures the strange and painful experience of watching your homeland endure war through a phone screen, unable to do much more than witness it from afar.

Palestine also had a major moment, with NAZA taking home the Special Jury Prize after already making headlines for receiving what was reported to be the longest standing ovation in Venice Film Festival history. Directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor—both of whom previously worked on Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land— the documentary turns its attention to Gaza, examining “the civilian casualties of Israel’s military operations in Gaza and the systems behind targeted killings of Palestinians.”

All the Arab Winners From the 2026 Venice International Film Festival

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