The film, co-produced by Fatih Akın and Klaus Maeck, also won the Gaztea Youth Award at the 57th San Sebastian International Film Festival in late September. Filmed in its entirety in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır and featuring dialogue in both Kurdish and Turkish, “Min Dit” follows the story of two children whose parents die during an armed clash in Diyarbakır.
The Hamburg festival's The Elf award comes with a cash prize of 5,000 euros. Praising the director in their decision, the three-member jury stated that “Bezar tears open this story in all its colorfulness, bleakness, horror, but also full of humor and vitality, with grandiose encounters and coincidences that gently jostle the story along,” and valued the film as being “astounding and absolutely electrifying.”
One hundred and forty-two films from 42 countries were featured at the 17th Filmfest Hamburg, which wrapped up its 10-day run on Saturday. Among the eight prizes handed out during the festival's closing gala was also the Art Cinema Award of the International Confederation of Art Cinemas (CICAE), given to German-Turkish filmmaker Akın for his newest film, “Soul Kitchen,” which the jury praised as being “straightforward, passionate, humorous and uncompromising with a large portion of optimism and a lot of soul.”
