Palm Springs – June 24, 2012 – Today at the Palm Springs International ShortFest Film Festival, Cinema Without Borders jury members voted Road to Peshawar, from USA, directed by Hammad Rizvi, as winner of the Cinema Without Borders’ Bridging The Borders Award. The CWB Jury also picked Dura Lex from Belgium, directed by Anke Blondé, as the runner up.
The award ceremony for the 2012 Palm Springs International ShortFest Film Festival was held at Camelot Theatre and Bijan Tehrani, Editor in Chief of Cinema Without Borders presented The Bridging The Borders Award to Hammad Rizvi director of Road to Peshawar. The winner received a certificate for an upcoming Method Acting Intensive with a value of $2000 from Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute.
“Deciding which film will be this year’s winner of the Bridging the Borders Award was, as always, a challenging task. All seven nominees chosen by festival programmers showed great filmmaking talent and were addressing important 
issues of our time. Members of the Cinema Without Borders jury decided to give our Bridging The Borders Award to Road To Peshawar, directed by Hammad Rizvi, a film that masterfully shows the injustice of war and the tragedies of misunderstandings. The runner up for 2012 Bridging The Borders Award is Dura Lex, directed by Anke Blondé , a film about the cruel laws against helpless human beings seeking a better place to live,” said Bijan Tehrani, Editor-in-Chief of Cinema Without Borders. He added, “I would like to thank the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute for generously providing the prize for the winning film, a scholarship certificate valued at $2000.”
When we asked festival director Darryl Macdonald about the winner the Bridging The Borders Award and the runner up film, he said “I’m delighted with the choices Cinema Without Borders has made for this award. Road to Peshawar provides a perfect depiction of the ways in which the universal human instincts of innocence and empathy are victimized by the random violence of war, while Dura Lex addresses the innate injustice of contemporary immigration policies worldwide.”
The nominees for the Cinema Without Borders’ Bridging The Borders Award were, Asad (South Africa), Buzkashi Boys (Afghanistan), Dura Lex (Belgium), The Other Side (Israel), Poetry Of Resilience (USA), Road To Peshawar (USA) and What You Are Looking At? (UK).
Road to Peshawar
USA, 2011, 19 Minute Running Time
Language: OTHER
In the murky circumstances of the Afghan/Soviet war, a homesick Russian soldier becomes involved in the plight of a young Afghan girl whose father has stepped on a mine while traversing the treacherous Peshawar pass through the mountains seeking to take her to Pakistan for medical attention.
DIRECTOR: Hammad Rizvi
Producer: Hammad Rizvi
Editor: Hammad Rizvi
Screenwriter: Hammad Rizvi
Cinematographer: Russell Bush
Principal Cast: Philip Kreyche,Mustafa Faiz,Yasmine Al-Bustami,Isabela Costine
Dura Lex
Belgium, 2011, 18 Minute Running Time
North American Premiere
Language: Dutch
When two detectives show up at Kristi’s house asking lots of questions about her Albanian maid, she has little time to decide what to think, say, and do – and her answers will have major consequences for all concerned.
DIRECTOR: Anke Blondé
Producer: Dirk Impens
Editor: Alain Dessauvage
Screenwriter: Bert Van Dael, Sanne Nuyens
Cinematographer: Ruben Impens
Principal Cast: Wine Dierickx,Wim Willaert,Nico Sturm