Who won what

It was a glorious moment for Palestinian filmmaker Elia Sulaiman as he took the prestigious Black Pearl Award for the Best Middle Eastern Film on the closing night of the Middle East International Film Festival.

Hollywood stars Orlando Bloom and Naomi Watts presented the gong to the filmmaker for his film The Time That Remains — a tale of Arabs from 1948 areas in Nazareth. Sulaiman, who made the film based on his father's diaries, has enjoyed a successful MEIFF with Variety awarding him the Best Middle East Filmmaker Of The Year last week.

Another festival favourite — No One Knows About Persian Cats, which delves deep into the Iranian underground music scene — scooped top honours. In a double whammy, the film won the Black Pearl Award For Audience Choice while its leading Iranian star Hamed Behdad took home the Black Pearl for Best Actor.

Russian Valery Todorovsky's Hipsters (Stilyagi), about Soviet-era youth using American music as a tool for protest against their totalitarian regime, also emerged a winner. It outshone 17 other films competing in the Best Narrative Feature Film section.

It was a big night for both actresses Alicia Laguna and Sonia Couoh.

Their performances in the Mexican film Northless won them a joint Best Actress award. Turkish cinema, which made its presence felt for the first time at MEIFF, garnered acclaim with the documentary film On The Way To School. It was awarded the Best Middle East Documentary award.

The glittering ceremony drew to a close with the MEIFF Executive Director Peter Scarlet calling his special guests — four goats — to the stage.