Dubai: Cyril Nehme, a 23-year-old Lebanese director, won two awards in the Student Short Film Festival for his fiction piece People Disappear All the Time.
At the end of the ceremony his name was announced yet again for the Grand Prize award as winner of best overall film.
Nehme, who studied at Université St Joseph (St Joseph University) in Lebanon, explained that the movie was his graduation project in which he was the director.
The movie, with its strong use of visuals, revolves around the story of a young man who is granted the opportunity to work in a government archive centre in Beirut. Gradually, he begins to discover suspicious documents and archives that allow him to develop a relationship with his new work environment.
“The first time I was so happy because they really announced it after a very nice description,” he said. “They said this is one of the films that has a very good scenario, very good directing, very good mastering of the elements so I was very happy when they said my name.”
Nehme also told Gulf News that the “atmosphere of the city is a bit grey and odd” to depict the intended mood of the film, one of the many elements that contributed to the winning of the award double.
“When they said my name for the second prize again I was like ‘oh my God’ — I was overwhelmed,” said Nehme. “I didn’t even know there was two prizes.”
— The writer is an intern at Gulf News.
