19/10/2020 - Usually awarded during Cannes’ Critics’ Week, the prize was won by Brit Aleem Khan’s first work, which outshone the various other films decorated with the sidebar’s label this year

The award ceremony at the Paris Film Archive (© Fondation Gan pour le Cinéma)

Conscious of the current, unprecedented crisis, the Gan Film Foundation (Fondation Gan pour le Cinéma) decided to continue with this year’s Distribution Prize - usually awarded on the Croisette - so as to lend its support to one of the five films bearing the Cannes 2020 Critics’ Week label. Worth a total value of €20,000, the award went to Rezo Films, the French distributor of Aleem Khan’s After Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aleem Khan
film profile].

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In the words of the Foundation’s managing director Dominique Hoff: "by way of its sensitive writing style, this very finely acted tale of multiple love stories takes us by surprise. It blows all the usual formulae out of the water, plays with appearances and teaches us that in the wake of collapse, rebuilding together is always an option."

The first feature film by the British author-director of Anglo-Pakistani origin, After Love is set in the coastal town of Dover, southern England, and revolves around main character Mary Hussain, who finds herself a widow after her husband’s unexpected death. The day after the funeral, she discovers that he was hiding a secret just 34km away, on the other side of the Channel, in Calais… The film is produced by The Bureau and sold worldwide by The Bureau Film Sales.

(Translated from French)