York alumna Eylem Kaftan's film Vendetta Song, which premiered at Toronto's Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on April 25, took the $5,000 CIDA prize for Best Canadian Documentary on International Development.
In the film, Kaftan (MA '00) returns to her Kurdish roots in eastern Turkey to uncover the truth and confront the ancient traditions that cost her aunt Guzide her life in an honour killing 30 years earlier (see story in the April 22 issue of YFile).
Right: Eylem Kaftan (photo by Telif Hakki)
Vendetta Song, which was also selected one of the top 10 audience picks in this 12th edition of North America's largest documentary film festival, will be broadcast on Vision TV on May 17 and Télé-Québec in fall 2005. The film was screened in Montreal in February 2005 during the festival Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois, where it won the Quebec Film Critics Association Best Medium Length Documentary Award.
Vendetta Song is produced by DLI Productions in co-production with the National Film Board of Canada, and in association with VisionTV. The film was written and directed by Kaftan, and produced by Abbey Neidik and Irene Lilienheim Angelico (for DLI Productions) and Germaine Ying Gee Wong (for the NFB). Sally Bochner was the executive producer.
Visit the Hot Docs Web site for a complete list of award winners at the 2005 festival.
This article was submitted to YFile by Mary-Lou Schagena, communications officer in the Faculty of Fine Arts.