An Arab woman has won Venice’s highest film prize. Danish-Egyptian director May el-Toukhy’s Golden Lion for Woman Unknown caps an important fortnight for Arab filmmakers, with women taking home awards and helping to decide who receives them.
A year after The Voice of Hind Rajab earned her the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, the festival’s second-highest honour, Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania returned as a juror. This time, the Maggie Gyllenhaal-led panel awarded the top prize to El-Toukhy, while Lebanese-Moroccan director Shaden Safieddine Tazi won best short film in the Orizzonti section for A Few Moments of Happiness.
Seeing their work recognised at this level is encouraging, but there is also plenty of room for the festivals to improve: Woman Unknown was the only main competition entry directed solely by a woman.
Speaking to our contributor James Mottram in Venice, El-Toukhy discussed her Egyptian roots and how growing up in Denmark with an Egyptian father shaped her interest in people judged and excluded by those around them. Her winning film, set in Denmark after the Second World War, is one expression of that. She also wants to explore her experience of growing up outside Egypt with an Egyptian Muslim background.
Gaza remained central to the festival’s conversations. Israeli filmmakers and No Other Land co-directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s Naza earned a record 25-minute standing ovation and received the Special Jury Prize, a year after Ben Hania’s film brought Hind Rajab’s voice to the same competition.
Discussing Naza after the awards, Ben Hania emphasised the courage required to document events still unfolding: “They are filming fresh history. The genocide is still ongoing. This is brave.”
Drawing on testimony from Israeli military and intelligence sources, the documentary examines how decisions leading to mass civilian deaths were made. Our four-star review explores the harrowing accounts at its centre.
Since Naza's win, the filmmakers have faced calls from Israeli ministers for their citizenship to be revoked, underscoring the pressure surrounding the film as it begins to reach audiences.
Also premiering out of competition was Citizen Osama, a documentary made in Gaza by filmmakers who are still there, following freelance journalist Osama Al-Ashi throughout 2025. The film has already been selected as Palestine's Academy Awards 2027 submission. Find my four-star review here.
Closer to home, the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair is holding its 35th edition. Its history stretches back further, to a tent at the Cultural Foundation in 1981. My colleague Saeed Saeed traces that journey with fair director Saeed Al Tunaiji, who first visited as a schoolboy and now oversees an event bringing together publishers from 95 countries.
Saeed’s opening day report took us from the Arabic launch of former Spanish king Juan Carlos’s memoir to a new book documenting Abu Dhabi’s modern architectural heritage. He also met the booksellers for whom the fair offers a chance to reconnect with readers who increasingly shop online.
The fair runs until September 18, and our programme guide includes discussions and performances spanning literature, music and art.
We’ll continue reporting from the fair and following the filmmakers whose work has made this year's Venice festival so significant. I look forward to sharing more of those conversations with you.
Head of Arab World Institute wants Arab artists to have a greater say
Anne-Claire Legendre wants Arab artists and cultural figures to have greater autonomy over how their work is presented at the Arab World Institute in Paris.
The former French diplomat, appointed president of the institute this year, says it can no longer operate mainly as a European showcase for Arab culture when a growing number of regional museums, festivals and cultural organisations are presenting that work themselves.
Legendre will be in Abu Dhabi on September 20 for the Congress of Arabic and Creative Industries at Manarat Al Saadiyat, where she will take part in the opening session, titled Arabic Language and Identity in a Changing World.
Find more here.
Abu Dhabi exhibition finds meaning in the patterns of everyday life
There are patterns to our lives that become so familiar that we stop noticing them.
The road taken to work each morning, the objects kept around the house, the changing light across a city skyline or the small gestures repeated without thought can gradually become part of a personal rhythm.
“Every household keeps a script no one wrote down, the gestures, routines and small fidelities through which a life quietly holds itself together,” says Shafeena Yusuff Ali, founder and executive director of Rizq Art Initiative.
Those unwritten scenarios are at the heart of Unseen Script, the latest exhibition at Rizq Art Initiative on Abu Dhabi's Reem Island. Running until October 28, it brings together 10 artists exploring repetition, memory, nature and the ways people make sense of the world around them.
Find more here.
Dates for your diary
Nagham at Space42 Arena, Abu Dhabi – October 9
TJ Monterde and KZ Tandingan at Coca-Cola Arena, Dubai – October 11
Mo Gilligan at Etihad Arena, Abu Dhabi – October 12
Other highlights
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