DUBAI: The Palestinian film “Thirteen in Gaza” has won the NETPAC Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, awarded by the Network for the Promotion of Asian Pacific Cinema.
The 2026 NETPAC jury was chaired by Mara Matta, alongside Richard Fung and Panagiotis Kotzathanasis, who praised director Hosam Abu Dan’s film in a statement issued on Sunday.
“Against unfolding genocide, ‘Thirteen in Gaza’ by Hosam Abu Dan turns suffering into neither spectacle nor victimhood, but into riveting images of life in all its complexity. A brave, intimate film that announces a major new voice in cinema,” the statement read.
Starring Firas Al-Masri, Ghassan Salem, Hanna Atallah, and Mariam Ziyara, the film follows a father and his teenage daughter as they navigate life in Gaza.
It is set in 2025 and follows a bombing that destroys 13-year-old Raghad’s home and kills members of her family.
“As she enters puberty in an overcrowded displacement camp without her mother, privacy, or access to basic sanitary care, her father, Abu Raghad, is drawn into a dark black-market economy run by an influential trader, Khalil,” the film’s official logline reads.
Filming the 77-minute movie was no less difficult than the reality of its story, according to Abu Dan who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat earlier this month.
“The film was shot under extremely difficult conditions, amid the war and limited resources. We filmed whenever circumstances allowed, and we tried as much as possible to find locations that met the film’s requirements while ensuring the safety of the crew. We were just meters away from attacks by occupation soldiers,” he said.
Produced by New Scene for Media Production and supported by the Doha Film Institute and the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, the film is the first fiction feature film to be shot in Gaza in 12 years.
