Palestinian American writer-director-actor Cherien Dabis received the Variety International Vanguard Director Award at the Red Sea Film Festival on Wednesday. The award presentation preceded the Middle East premiere of “All That’s Left of You,” which played in competition at Red Sea and won the Silver Yusr award.
In accepting the award, Dabis said it was a “beautiful surprise,” and added that – as she had been selected in 2009 as one of Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch – “I feel like I have come full circle” with this award.
“All That’s Left of You” had its world premiere in January in the Premieres section of the Sundance Film Festival, and was selected by Jordan as its entry for the international feature film category of the 98th Academy Awards. Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo have signed on as executive producers.
The film, described by Variety as “searing, honest and soul-crushing,” tells the tale of a Palestinian teenager swept up into a West Bank protest. It is told from the perspective of his mother, played by Dabis, and looks back at the trauma experienced by the family across several generations.
Interviewed on stage before the Red Sea screening, Dabis said, “I think it’s history that led me to create this family. The film is inspired by my father, who’s Palestinian from the West Bank. He was exiled in 1967 and had to get foreign citizenship to return just to visit his family and the only home he’d ever known, his homeland.
“So, I grew up with his heartache. I grew up with his pain. I grew up longing for Palestine, and visiting Palestine, seeing him harassed and humiliated at checkpoints.
“The family and the film are inspired by the generations of my own family, even though it’s not our story. It’s a fiction film, but the characters are very much inspired by my grandfather, my father and my siblings and I, and seeing how our identities formed in relationship to what was happening in Palestine and in relationship and in opposition to each other.”
The film won the audience awards at Thessaloniki Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival and San Francisco Film Festival, where it also took the Golden Gate Award for a narrative feature. Dabis won best director at Seville European Film Festival.
In 2022, Dabis was a nominee for a Primetime Emmy for directing for a comedy series for “Only Murders in the Building.” Other series credits include “Empire,” “Ozark,” “Ramy” and “Little Voice.”
Her feature debut, “Amreeka,” premiered in 2009 as part of Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. Her second feature, “May in the Summer,” premiered at Sundance in 2013. “All That’s Left of You” is her third feature.
