Campus Magazin Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg 22/23

A few months later, we received an e-mail from the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in LA, informing
us that TALA’VISION was officially competing
with 14 other outstanding films in the category Narrative
International. It was a shock for all of us, many
broke out in tears of disbelief. It was a true moment of
joy that felt like we were on top of the world. Little did
we know that this was only the beginning.
No campaigning was required during the voting period
of the Student Oscars. It took some long weeks until the
Academy voted on the 7 films which would get nominated.
To our joy, TALA’VISION was one of the finalists.
At this point, the true exposure of our film on the international
stage started to take shape. Due to the pandemic,
the Student Oscar race was conducted entirely online,
which created the feeling of it being merely fictional.
After some weeks of waiting, I was requested to do one
more interview. In the Zoom meeting, the president of
the Student Academy Awards and Iranian director Asghar
Farhadi surprised me. Farhadi expressed how much
he fell in love with TALA’VISION and especially with
its lead character, Tala, and that it was his pleasure to inform
me that the film has won the Student Oscar medal
in gold. After taking some time to digest the news, my
first realization was that this win was the first for an Arab
director in the fiction category in the history of the
Academy Awards. I was asked by the organizers to keep
the news a secret for two days, so that they could organize
a Zoom meeting to record the announcement of the
win to the team. It was a very rough task for me to keep
the news to myself and especially to keep it from the
team, but now they all have a wonderful recorded moment,
as a memory for a lifetime.
After winning the Student Oscar, TALA’VISION got officially
eligible for the 94th Academy Awards. The entire
team was aware that the chances of getting forward
in this competition are quite low. It was a completely
different turf for all of us. After an intense campaigning
period, the Academy voted and the shortlist was announced.
The team met in Ludwigsburg for the results
announcement. To our surprise, the film managed to
make it to the shortlist. A dream that every filmmaker
hopes to reach at least once in a lifetime. From this point
on, the intensity of the campaign only gets more extreme.
I was conducting between 7–12 interviews a day
for weeks, with many international media outlets. Unfortunately,
the film did not make it to the nominations.
Some disappointment was felt indeed, but mixed with
feelings of pride and accomplishment.
DoP Philip Henze and Murad on set.
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