Lebanese film wins top award at Toronto fest

Lebanese film wins top award at Toronto fest

Nadine Labaki

MUMBAI: Where Do We Go Now, a Lebanese film about the struggles of a village in the war-torn country was awarded the People‘s Choice award at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday.
 
The film, directed by Lebanon-born Nadine Labaki, tells the story of village inhabited by both Muslims and Christians. When a wider inter-religious conflict threatens to seep into the village, its women go to inventive and sometimes extreme ends to prevent violence.
 
"I‘m running around jumping up and down at the Frankfurt airport," Labaki said of her win at Toronto in a message read to the awards ceremony‘s audience.
 
A festival official said Labaki wrote the film in Beirut in 2007 when armed clashes had broken out. Pregnant at the time, she began thinking about what she could do to change the world as a filmmaker.
 
The film, that debuted at Cannes earlier this year, is already Lebanon‘s official entry into the Foreign Language Film category at for next year‘s Academy Awards.