The Facts
Sharjah Art Foundation announced the winners of the ninth edition of Sharjah Film Platform (SFP) on November 10, 2026. The awards were granted across four categories: Best Documentary Feature Film, Best Documentary Short Film, Best Fiction Feature Film and Best Fiction Short Film. The winners include Rania Rafei's "The Day of Wrath: Tales from Tripoli" (Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, 118 minutes) for Best Documentary Feature, Arief Budiman's "Shadow of Sakura" (Indonesia, Japan, 28 minutes) for Best Documentary Short, Zamo Mkhwanazi's "Uhlanjululo (Laundry)" (South Africa, Switzerland, 106 minutes) for Best Fiction Feature, and Asim Abdulaziz's "I Broke a Vase" (Yemen, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, 15 minutes) for Best Fiction Short. A special mention was awarded to David Bim's "Al Oeste, En Zapata" (Cuba, 75 minutes) in the documentary feature category. The winners were selected by an international jury comprising filmmakers, curators and industry professionals, including fiction jurors Hania Nashef, Maike Mia Höhne and Roger Garcia, and documentary jurors Mahmoud Kaabour, Rabih El Khoury and Rasha Amer.
The Signal
The awards underscore Sharjah Art Foundation's commitment to supporting independent cinema from the Global South and regions often underrepresented in mainstream film festivals. The winning films tackle complex historical and political narratives—from post-colonial Lebanon and apartheid South Africa to wartime Yemen and Indonesia's dark past—reflecting a curatorial focus on cinema as a tool for social and political engagement. For collectors and curators, the SFP awards signal emerging talent from the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia, offering a pipeline for artists whose work may later appear in biennials or museum exhibitions. The festival, which runs as a 10-day event centered around Mirage City Cinema in Sharjah's historical quarter, also includes talks, workshops and industry discussions, positioning itself as a key platform for networking and discovery in the region.
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- Artists: Rania Rafei, Arief Budiman, David Bim, Zamo Mkhwanazi, Asim Abdulaziz
- People: Hania Nashef, Maike Mia Höhne, Roger Garcia, Mahmoud Kaabour, Rabih El Khoury, Rasha Amer, Hoor Al Qasimi
- Museums: Sharjah Art Foundation
- Locations: Sharjah
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