After having its world premiere at the 71st Locarno Film Festival in 2018, filmmaker, writer and theatre practitioner Hamza Bangash’s short film, Dia has recently won the 2020 Locarno Shorts Weeks Audience Award. The filmmaker, who represented Pakistan at the 72nd edition of Locarno International Film Festival 2019, took to social media to announce the news.
“We won!” wrote Bangash on his official Instagram handle. “Thank you to my incredible team and everyone who voted for our short film Dia to be the winner of the first ever Locarno Film Festival Shorts Week – almost two years after we had our world premiere at the festival and right after we presented the feature Mariam (that is inspired by the short) at Berlinale Talents Project Market – is so much validation that this is a story that needs to be told. Dia – Mariam – and let’s keep the story going,” he added.
In a recent interview, Bangash shared that they made the film almost two years ago, and the world premiere took place in Locarno in August 2018. “Winning an award now, as part of a VOD (video on demand) event, highlights the importance of such occurrences for shorts. It also means my love affair with Locarno is far from over,” he asserted.
According to Locarno Film Festival’s website, besides Dia the two runner-ups of the 2020 Locarno Shorts Weeks include Vasilis Kekatos’ The Silence of the Dying Fish and The Last Post Office by Aung Rakhine. The winner and runner-ups were selected out of the 23 short films from the Locarno 71 line-up.
