A Palestinian woman has won the world’s largest LGBTQ+ short film award.
Dima Hamdan said she was “deeply honoured” to receive the £30,000 2024 Iris Prize, because it was both “the ‘Oscars’ of the LGBTQ+ short film world” and “it comes from a community that has increasingly voiced its support for Palestine in recent years”.
Former Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price, who chaired the international jury, called Blood Like Water “an important reminder that queer people exist everywhere, including in Palestine at a time of war and occupation”.
Louisa Connolly-Burnham won the Best British Short at the Cardiff-based festival for her work, Sister Wives.
Hamdan is a self-taught filmmaker and journalist based in Berlin.
According to the festival, her film “tells the story of Shadi, who embarks on a secret adventure and accidentally drags his family into a trap where they only have two choices; collaborate with the Israeli occupation or be shamed and humiliated by their own people”.
Reacting to the prize, Hamdan said: “It is difficult to celebrate personal achievements when the most televised and live-streamed war in human history has dragged on for one year with no end in sight.
