2016 LOS ANGELES AMAZIGH FILM FESTIVAL
PRESS RELEASE
June 22, 2016
With great pleasure, the Tazzla Institute and its project, the Amazigh Film Festival in Los Angeles, New York and Boston, would like to announce that Dounia Productions, which has supported this Film Festival since its inception in 2008 with the showing of its superb documentary titled “Amazigh Rebirth” and shown documentaries on Amazigh culture every single year at our festival, has been the recipient of fifteen awards for its four entries in the 2016 U.S. International Film and Video Festival. The head of Dounia Productions, a Moroccan film and video production company headquartered in Casablanca, is Dounia Benjelloun, the producer of all awarded entries.
Dounia Productions collected fifteen awards altogether in this international competition, a notable feat indeed. Its Corporate category entry , “Let’s Dream of a New World” (done for BMCE Bank, our sponsor ) received a Best Festival-Corporate award for direction (Juan Solanas) , two Golden Camera Awards for direction and cinematography, and a Silver Screen Award for Music. “Women in Amazigh Music” , our selection for the 8th Annual Amazigh Film Festival which will take place in Boston in September, won a Silver Screen Award in Documentary Cinematography, and three Certificates of Excellence in Direction, Editing, and Short Documentary. Director: Farida Benlyazid; cinematographer: Hamid Ait Lachquar, and editor: Abderrahim Mettour. This is also the team which received awards for two other Amazigh cultural entries, ” Amazigh Wedding in the Anergui Valley” and “The Little Maestros”.
We extend our most cordial applause and congratulations to the recipients of those awards which mark the successful entry of Amazigh cinema in an international competition , and thank the producer of those award winning documentaries, Dounia Benjelloun, for her superb cinematographic work and her continued support of our film festival through the years. Ms Benjelloun was herself the recipient of the “Tazzla Institute Award” at our 2014 Sixth Annual Amazigh Film Festival held at the Wells Fargo Theater of the Autry Museum in Los Angeles, which honored her as “Amazigh Cultural Ambassador.”
Helene E. Hagan, Director L.A.A.F.F. (2008-2016) and President, Tazzla Institute (1993-Present)
