International media have reported that Dawood Helmandi, an Afghan writer and director, has won the Best First Feature Award at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), along with two other awards, for his 97-minute film Pekar.
The film tells the story of several generations who experience displacement and their efforts to find belonging, security, and freedom.
According to international media reports, the winners of the 38th edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) received their awards on Thursday evening (November 20) in the Netherlands, where Helmandi’s documentary Pekar attracted attention by earning multiple awards.
Helmandi emphasized that Pekar narrates the story of several generations of the Helmandi family, who have experienced different forms of migration and separation from their homeland, and who struggle to regain a sense of belonging, security, and freedom.
The film portrays Helmandi’s relationship with his elderly and strict father after years of living away from Iran and Afghanistan, providing a profound depiction of family bonds and resilience in the face of hardship.
Pekar, produced in Persian and Dutch, won awards including Best First Feature, a Special Mention for Best Dutch Film, and the FIPRESCI Prize at IDFA.
The IDFA jury stated in a released announcement that Pekar is a “broad and courageous film that deeply explores the complexities of a family shaped over generations by war and displacement.”
They stressed that “the filmmaker’s vulnerability allows us to enter an intimate, highly sensitive portrait of his own family—one told with honesty, subtlety, and emotional depth.”
The announcement added that this year’s winner of the Best First Feature Award at IDFA is “a work told with cinematic courage and maturity, one that lingers in the mind; a film that reveals the enduring impact of history on individual lives and the true meaning of ‘home.’”
The film premiered in IDFA’s “Luminous” section and won all three categories in which it was nominated.
