‘Thank You For Banking With Us!' wins top honours at Malmö and Beirut Festivals
The Palestinian film Thank You For Banking With Us! has grabbed major awards on the international festival circuit, earning Best Screenwriter for filmmaker Laila Abbas at the Malmö Arab Film Festival and Best Fiction Feature at the Beirut International Women Film Festival in Lebanon.
Written, directed and produced by Abbas through her Ramallah-based company Young Oak Productions, the film is a joint German-Palestinian production that delves into themes of female empowerment and familial struggle. It follows the story of sisters Mariam and Noura, who, after the death of their father, hatch a plan to claim a large inheritance, determined to bypass their brother's legal claim to half of the estate.
Laila Abbas describes the film as a tribute to the strength of womanhood and the power of solidarity among women. 'It's a story about sisters who, having endured their own tragedies and heartbreaks, come together to become stronger,' she said.
Thank You For Banking With Us! is co-produced by Hanna Atallah of Palestine Cinema Days and Roshanak Behesht Nedjad of Berlin's In Good Company Films. International sales and distribution are handled by MAD World, while MAD Solutions and Lagoonie Film Production—based in Cairo and Riyadh—are also on board as co-producers.
The project has garnered substantial support throughout its development. It received four $10,000 grants from ART, Cedars Productions, O Three Productions and Metafora through the El Gouna Film Festival in 2018. It also won the In-Development Award from the CineGouna Platform and secured backing from the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, the Doha Film Institute's Qumra 2023 initiative, and various German film funds, including Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. Additionally, it benefited from the Hubert Bals Plus Europe fund of the International Film Festival Rotterdam and was among the recipients of the Red Sea Fund's third cycle.
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