Palm Springs – June 28, 2009 – Today at the Palm Springs International ShortFest Film Festival, Cinema Without Borders jury members voted Kingsland #1: The Dreamer, directed by Tony Grisoni, as winner of the Cinema Without Borders Best International Film Award.
The award ceremony for the 2009 Palm Springs International ShortFest Film Festival was held at Camelot Theatre and Bijan Tehrani, Editor in Chief of Cinema Without Borders and a faculty member of the Art Institute of California, Los Angeles, presented the Cinema Without Borders Best International Film Award.
“Deciding the winner of the Cinema Without Borders Best International Film Award was a very difficult task . All five of the films nominated by the festival’s programmers for this award were thought-provoking and well done. The nominees–Immersion from U.S.A., Kanda from Norway, Kingsland from England, One Night Together from Greece, and Skunks from Spain–all centered around the subject of immigration. After hours of discussion, we decided to give our award to Kingsland because of its great use of the language of cinema in telling a very important story of our time.” said Bijan.
When we asked festival director Darryl Macdonald about the winner of the Best International Film award, he praised the film: “Superbly directed and acted, Kingsland is a heartbreaking portrayal of the ways in which illegal immigrants can become the innocent victims of a system and a society that relegates them to a world in which less scrupulous elements can manipulate them mercilessly for their own ends. It’s a story that could take place at anytime, and anywhere in the world, as long as people are driven to cross borders in order to find a better life for themselves and for their families.”
Kingsland #1: The Dreamer opens with the moon looking down. A stranger arrives in the city looking for work, love and respect. We travel with him; briefly 
dipping into other lives, treading a tragically inevitable road that leads us back to the beginning. Kingsland is an engrossing story about a young Kurdish émigré who tries to meld into the teeming world of London unequipped with the language or basic skills he’ll need to make it in this alien new world that he’s entered.
Format: 35mm scope
Year of Production: 2008
Running Time: 20 mins
Director: Tony Grisoni
Producer: Kate Ogborn
Executive/Co-Producers: Jo McClellan, Mike Elliott
Editor: Ewa J Lind
Screenwriter: Tony Grisoni
Director of Photography: Florian Hoffmeister
Production Designer: Mark Digby
Sound: Tim Baker
Music: Jem Finer
Principal Cast: Abdullah Gurlek, Ali Fidan, Fatma Cakmakyurdu, Andy Elia, Sema Yildiz, Yusuf Salt
Production Company:
The Bureau Film Company
18 Phipp Street
London EC2A 4NU