Maltese film wins six int'l awards

Maltese film titled Simshar has succeeded to win six awards at a number of international film festivals over the past weekend.

Four of these awards that were achieved at the Bridges International Film Festival held Sunday night in Greece, included the Golden Pegasus Best Film award for director and co-script writer Rebecca Cremona, and Best Leading Actress award for Clare Agius.

During the same night, this film won also the renowned International Dramatic Feature Film award at the Edmonton Awards in Canada.

On Saturday, Cremona was triumphant at the International Film Festival in Mannheim, Germany, where she was awarded the Special Achievement award.

In her comments to Xinhua, Cremona said, "We are so overwhelmed that within 72 hours, we won such fantastic awards in different countries and from very reputable festivals."

"It has been a concerted effort but Simshar is really travelling. In fact, at the moment, we also have concurrent theatrical releases in Australia and Tunisia. And that's the most important, that Simshar gets out there, and we take another step towards putting Malta on the map," said Cremona.

Revolving around Maltese immigration concerns, politics issues, and a love story, Simshar is a fiction film which was inspired by a real tragedy that took place on a fishing boat named Simshar in 1998. Four people died during this ill-fated fishing trip, including the 11-year-old son of the only survivor. Endit