Palestinian director Kamal Aljafari received a special mention at the 45th Vancouver International Film Festival for his short film ‘Back Home’, which addresses the destruction in Gaza through a television screen inside his parents’ home. The main prize for Canadian feature films went to ‘Nina Rosa’, directed by Geneviève Dulude-De Celles.
Kamal Aljafari receives mention for ‘Back Home’
The Short Forum jury gave Aljafari a special mention for ‘Back Home’, a 21-minute Palestinian-German-French production. In the film, Aljafari depicts the television screen inside his parents’ home, then moves closer to images coming from Gaza, searching among the rubble for traces of everyday life that remain after the destruction.
The film does not rely on direct footage from inside the Gaza Strip. Instead, it reflects on how images of war enter homes and gradually become part of the memory of Palestinians living outside the area. The Vancouver festival classified the film among documentaries related to human rights and social justice, and placed a clear notice on its official page stating that it addresses the genocide in Palestine.
The dialogue in ‘Back Home’ is in Arabic and English, and the film was produced by Kamal Aljafari Productions. It continues Aljafari’s cinematic project of using home footage and archival material to reclaim Palestinian place, while attempting to reveal what an image conceals alongside what it shows directly.
Aljafari, who was born in the city of Ramla, works as a director and producer in cinema and visual art. His films revolve around memory, erasure and absence, and examine the relationship between Palestinians and images of the cities and homes that shaped their individual and collective experience.
Short-film prizes and the main prize’s value
The main Short Forum prize, worth 5,000 Canadian dollars, or about 3,700 dollars, went to the Taiwanese animated film ‘Before Parenthood’, directed by Yu Yu. The 15-minute film follows a woman who uses augmented-reality glasses as she prepares for motherhood.
The woman loses her unborn daughter in a car accident, and a fragment of the glasses’ lens becomes lodged in her brain, after which she begins seeing the child everywhere. The film combines stop-motion animation, science fiction and psychological horror to address grief and loss. In the Summit Competition, the jury awarded its 15,000-Canadian-dollar prize, or about 11,000 dollars, to Geneviève Dulude-De Celles for ‘Nina Rosa’.
The jury praised the film’s treatment of migration, identity and homesickness, as well as its direction, acting, cinematography and music. The film tells the story of Mikhail, a contemporary art expert who left Bulgaria with his daughter Rosa and settled in Montreal about 30 years ago.
An art collector asks him to return to Bulgaria to authenticate paintings attributed to Nina, an eight-year-old girl described as an exceptional artistic talent. But the task does not remain confined to examining the paintings, as the journey forces Mikhail to confront his past while he remains preoccupied with the girl’s future.
The lead role is played by Bulgarian-Canadian theatre director Galin Stoev, in his first screen appearance, while twins Sofia and Ekaterina Stanina share the role of Nina. ‘Nina Rosa’ runs for 103 minutes and is a co-production between Canada, Italy, Bulgaria and Belgium, with dialogue in Bulgarian and French.
Its win in Vancouver adds another stop to its international journey, after its director received the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the Berlin Film Festival, and the film won two awards at the Locarno industry market in 2025 before receiving the audience award at the Sofia Film Festival. A committee formed by Telefilm Canada selected ‘Nina Rosa’ from among 17 works to represent Canada in the competition for the 2027 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
‘Nina Rosa’ continues its path towards the 2027 Oscars
The shortlist for the award is due to be announced on 15 December, with the final nominations to be announced on 21 January 2027. The Summit Competition gave a special mention to ‘The Strong Son’, directed by Ian Bawa. The film follows a bodybuilder who returns to his family home to care for his elderly father before gradually collapsing under the weight of his care responsibilities and the anxiety accompanying them.
The film links physical strength with mental health and examines the emotional distance between first-generation immigrant parents and their children. It tells its story through a man raised to believe that masculinity means silence and endurance, before he realises that asking for help can be another form of strength.
‘In the Heart of the South’, directed by Nila Inuksuk, won the Horizon Award, worth 3,000 Canadian dollars, or about 2,200 dollars. The award is for a Canadian director’s first or second feature, or for a director from an Indigenous community. The film begins during a snowstorm in Iqaluit in northern Canada, where two Inuit girls undergo a mysterious experience.
Years later, the story moves to Toronto, when one of them relives the old trauma while trying to turn what happened into a film project. Inuksuk combines drama, psychological horror and satire to raise questions about the representation of Indigenous people, who has the right to turn their suffering into films, and the possibility of exploiting their experiences within cultural industries dominated by white institutions.
Anna Lambe and Zorga Qunuk play the lead roles after appearing in the series ‘North of North’, while music inspired by Inuit singing helps shape the film’s psychological world. ‘Foot Deformity’, directed by Nathan Donovan, received a special mention in the same competition. The Tides Award went to ‘The Ceremony’, directed by Banchi Hanuse.
Documentary prizes and Indigenous issues
The prize, awarded for Canadian documentaries and works by Indigenous directors, is worth 15,000 Canadian dollars, or about 11,000 dollars. ‘The Ceremony’ documents the disappearance of ooligan fish from the Bella Coola region and the efforts of the Nuxalk people to determine the causes and defend their land and waters.
The community does not regard the fish solely as a source of food, as it is also connected to medicine, the economy, ceremonies and knowledge passed down through generations. Hanuse combines testimonies from members of her community with animated watercolours and archival material, linking the environmental crisis to the history of colonial policies and Indigenous efforts to protect their language and resources.
The film previously won the Special Jury Prize for Canadian Documentary at the 2026 Hot Docs festival. ‘Quiet Night, Burning House’, directed by Carol Nguyen, also received a special mention. ‘How We Stand’, directed by Mary Clements, won the Arbutus Award, which honours film production in British Columbia.
The prize is worth 10,000 Canadian dollars, or about 7,400 dollars, along with 15,000 dollars’ worth of post-production services. The film begins in Oklahoma in the 1950s, when an Indigenous mother and her three daughters move to Los Angeles in response to promises made by a government programme relocating Indigenous people to cities.
But the promises of work and stability are not fulfilled, before a shocking incident separates the sisters. Twenty years later, the sisters have followed different paths: the first has become a doctor, the second has moved from activism into acting, while the third remains unable to overcome a trauma she has been unable to discuss.
Clements uses magical realism and satire of Western films to examine the impact of racism and institutional violence within a family and across generations. ‘Send the Rain’, directed by Hayley Gray and Kayla Watshell, received a special mention. The film follows a Canadian painter of Okinawan descent who tries to persuade her grandmother to leave the family farm as wildfires approach, but the journey reveals the family’s history and its relationship with land, migration and agricultural work.
In the Vanguard Competition, ‘Hear the Yellow’, directed by Turkish filmmaker Banu Sivaci, won the 5,000-Canadian-dollar prize, or about 3,700 dollars. The jury praised the film’s cinematic language and its use of metaphor to construct a confrontation between the countryside and the city, and between family members separated by the years.
The film’s protagonist, Suna, returns to her village in Anatolia to attend her nephew’s wedding and finds the family home damaged by geological disturbances. At the same time, other cracks emerge in her relationship with her brother, linked to the disappearance of their sister.
The search for the missing woman becomes a confrontation with the traditions that previously drove Suna to leave the village, and a test of what loyalty to family means when it conflicts with personal principles. ‘Hear the Yellow’ had won awards for Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress at the 2026 Taormina Film Festival. The Vanguard jury gave a special mention to ‘That Fading Shadow’, directed by Samuel Urbina.
The awards reflected the presence of films connecting individual stories with issues including the war in Gaza, migration, the forced relocation of Indigenous people, racism, climate change and mental health, with works from Palestine, Inuit communities, Anatolian villages and immigrant families in Canada particularly prominent.
