The 2026 Venice Film Festival closed on September 12 with May El-Toukhy winning the top prize for “Woman Unknown,” one of only two films directed by women in the official competition.
In the Orizzonti section, which brings together emerging filmmakers, the jury chaired by French director Valérie Donzelli honored another woman filmmaker, Moroccan-Lebanese director Shaden Safieddine Tazi, awarding the Best Short Film prize to “Quelques instants de bonheur.” The film competed alongside 19 feature films and 13 short films.
In the 18-minute short, Shaden Tazi follows a young filmmaker who, after leaving Beirut for Paris, lies frozen with fear in her bed as she follows news from Lebanon while Israeli bombardments begin.
Growing up in Casablanca to a Lebanese father and Moroccan mother, Shaden Tazi is also the granddaughter of renowned fashion designer Tamy Tazi.
In the film, the director uses screenshots, voice messages, personal archives and fragments of conversations to trace exchanges between the father who remained in Lebanon and his daughter in Paris.
The film also explores how distance affects relationships and how families maintain and strengthen their connections through digital screens.
A graduate of Columbia University with a degree in Film and Media Studies, Tazi previously directed the short film “Un jour tout va disparaître,” which won the Best Cinematography award at the Tangier Film Festival and was screened internationally, including at the Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival, the Arab Film and Media Institute and the Menart Fair.
She received support from the Atlas Workshops during the 2025 edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival.
