LYD wins Best Asian Feature at Pramana Asian Film Festival

Rami Younis and Sarah Ema Friedland's documentary LYD, ascended to cinematic greatness in the closing ceremony of the Pramana Asian Film Festival on March 29th, clinching the film extravaganza’s prestigious Best Asian Feature Award and raising its tally to four international awards.

This marks the documentary's third win within a month following its recent recognition with two special mentions at the Sguardi Altrove International Women Film Festival. It is worth mentioning that LYD is also poised to commence its US tour with an inaugural screening scheduled at Harvard University on April 19th.

Previously, LYD received the Jury Award for Best Documentary and the inaugural FIPRESCI Award at the fourth edition of the Amman International Film Festival - Awal Film (AIFF).

Additionally, it enjoyed successful screenings at the Pune, Middle East Now, Al Ard, Reel Palestine, Palestinian, and Melbourne Science Fiction film festivals.

The film is a sci-fi documentary that follows the rise and fall of Lyd — a 5,000-year-old metropolis that was once a bustling Palestinian town until it was conquered when the State of Israel was established in 1948.

As the film unfolds, a chorus of characters creates a tapestry of the Palestinian experience of this city and the trauma left by the massacre and expulsion.

Rami Younis is a Palestinian filmmaker, writer, and journalist from Lyd. Younis currently hosts a daily news show called 'On the Other Hand,' where he exposes fake news and counters misinformation about Israeli Palestinian residents.

Meanwhile, Sarah Ema Friedland is a New York-based documentary filmmaker and media artist. Friedland's works have screened widely in the US and abroad and have been broadcast nationally on PBS.