Last week, Sandra Lipski is the founder and director of the Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival, announced the winner of Cinema Without Borders’ Bridging the Borders Award at the closing ceremony of 14th Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival.
Sandra Lipski read CWB’s jury statement in fron of over 600 people at the Mallorca’s Opera house: “The jury of the Cinema Without Borders’ Bridging the Borders Award is proud to present this year’s award to Majini, directed by Joshua Neubert and Victor Muhagachi from Germany.
Majini tells the moving story of a young boy who cannot swim but must brave the sea alongside his brother when their father falls ill. Through this simple yet powerful narrative, the film explores courage, brotherhood, and the quiet initiation into adulthood that hardship often demands. The directors’ delicate visual language and sensitivity to human emotion turn this coming-of-age story into a universal reflection on love, responsibility, and resilience.
The jury also wishes to recognize Just Like a Boy, directed by Bahar Pars from Armenia, Denmark, and Sweden, which received second place. The film tells the story of Maryam, who flees persecution by disguising herself as a boy. In hiding, she forms a fragile bond with Ahmed, blurring the boundaries between love and survival. Pars’s film stands out for its emotional intensity and its powerful portrayal of identity, gender, and the instinct to endure.
In honoring Majini, the jury celebrates a film that beautifully embodies the spirit of the Bridging the Borders Award — reminding us that cinema, at its best, builds bridges of understanding across cultures, generations, and seas.”
Mallorca FF – Bridging the Borders Award Jury:
Keely Badger is the Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of 360 MEDIA Consulting; a woman-owned, woman-led digital marketing agency for storytellers, changemakers, and brands working on the frontlines of social impact and innovation. Her high-performance multimedia campaigns have attracted influential clients such as The Sundance Institute, The Redford Center, Human Rights Watch, KPJR Films, and over 50 award-winning indie films.
Developing a love for the transformative potential of documentary film to bridge communities and awaken critical consciousness, Keely has worked in the public and private sector over the past 15 years, using social impact cinema as a tool to inspire audiences to meaningful action. With a background in helping produce, brand and market films by providing strategic audience engagement models, impactful multimedia campaigns and community partnership-building, Keely has successfully helped independent filmmakers galvanize social change in both grassroots and international arenas.
360 MEDIA is proud to serve as a presenting sponsor of the 2024 Bridging The Borders Award.
Rodrigo Garcia – Born in Colombia and raised in Mexico City, Rodrigo Garcia is a celebrated WGA Award-winning screenwriter, Emmy-nominated director, Golden Globe-nominated producer, and author. A consistent figure in independent film for over 20 years, Rodrigo has directed the multiple Academy Award-nominated film Albert Nobbs, starring Glenn Close, Mother and Child, starring Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, and Samuel L. Jackson, Apple TV+’s Raymond & Ray, starring Ethan Hawke and Ewan McGregor, Nine Lives, and most recently Netflix’s Familia, starring Daniel Giménez Cacho and Maribel Verdú. Garcia has also written and directed several films which have attracted critical acclaim, such as his first, Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, which won the Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes Film Festival in 2000, and his sophomore film, Nine Lives, for which he received Independent Spirit Award nominations for both directing and screenwriting in 2006. Last Days in the Desert, starring Ewan McGregor, and Four Good Days, starring Glenn Close and Mila Kunis, each earned Sundance premieres in 2015 and 2020, respectively.
In addition to his distinguished career in film, Garcia has worked on several television shows including The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Affair, and Big Love, for which he directed the pilot episode and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. In 2008, he developed, showran, and directed HBO’s American adaptation of In Treatment, which earned him a WGA Award, an Emmy and Golden Globe nomination for Outstanding Drama Series, and an AFI Award for TV Program of the Year in 2009. In 2022, Garcia directed, and executive produced two limited series: News of a Kidnapping, an adaptation of his father Gabriel García Márquez’s book, for Amazon Prime Video, and Santa Evitafor Star+/Hulu. In 2024, he and his brother, Gonzalo García Barcha, executive produced the on-screen adaptation of their father’s best-selling and Nobel Prize-winning novel One Hundred Years of Solitude for Netflix, which was met with praise for its faithful rendering of the beloved novel. His memoir, A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes: A Son’s Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha, was published in July 2021 by HarperCollin’s HarperVia and was an Autobiography finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Awards.
Marcy Garriott is an independent documentary filmmaker based in Austin, Texas. An electrical engineer and still photographer coming out of college, she was a telecommunications executive for 15 years before turning to filmmaking and non-profit social activism. Her Director/Producer credits include the award-winning documentary films SPLIT DECISION (PBS) and INSIDE THE CIRCLE (MTV). Marcy also produced THE LEAST OF THESE (about immigrant child detention) and AN UNREAL DREAM: THE MICHAEL MORTON STORY (CNN/Discovery Channel). Most recently she served as an Executive Producer on the documentary films PEACE OFFICER, A REVOLUTION IN FOUR SEASONS, and Emmy-nominated BUILDING THE AMERICAN DREAM. Marcy is a former board member and President of the Austin Film Society.
Farah Nabulsi is an Academy Award®-Nominated and BAFTA®-Winning Palestinian-British filmmaker. She has been writing and producing fiction narrative films since 2016. Her first short film, Today They Took My Son, was endorsed by British director Ken Loach and screened at the United Nations. Her directorial debut, The Present, won over 60 International Film Festival Awards, a BAFTA® Award and an Oscar® Nomination. It was licensed internationally to Canal+ and Netflix.
In 2023, Farah made her feature-length debut with The Teacher, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and has won over 18 International Film Festival Awards. It was BAFTA-Longlisted for outstanding Debut (2024) and BIFA-Longlisted in 3 categories (2023).
Farah has been invited to serve as a jury member at numerous film festivals. She is also a voting member of both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).
is an Academy Award®-Nominated and BAFTA®-Winning Palestinian-British filmmaker. She has been writing and producing fiction narrative films since 2016. Her first short film, Today They Took My Son, was endorsed by British director Ken Loach and screened at the United Nations. Her directorial debut, The Present, won over 60 International Film Festival Awards, a BAFTA® Award and an Oscar® Nomination. It was licensed internationally to Canal+ and Netflix.
In 2023, Farah made her feature-length debut with The Teacher, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and has won over 18 International Film Festival Awards. It was BAFTA-Longlisted for outstanding Debut (2024) and BIFA-Longlisted in 3 categories (2023).
Farah has been invited to serve as a jury member at numerous film festivals. She is also a voting member of both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).
Saeed Roustaee (born August 14, 1989 (is an Iranian filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. His works primarily focus on issues of social injustice, as well as his portrayals of women in Iranian society.
His second feature, Just 6.5 (2019), was nominated for the César Award for Best Foreign Film. His third and fourth films, Leila’s Brothers (2022) and Woman and Child (2025), were selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022 and 2025, respectively.
In June 2025, Roustayi was invited to join the Directors Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science
Alka Sadat is an award-winning Afghan filmmaker whose work gives voice to stories of resilience, women’s rights, and social justice. She grew up under Taliban rule, where her mother secretly educated her daughters at home — an act of defiance that shaped her filmmaking. In 2003, she co-founded, with her sister, Roya Sadat, Roya Film House, one of Afghanistan’s first women-led production companies. Her documentary Half Value Life won several international awards, including the Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival Award, while Afghanistan Night Stories premiered at IDFA and received the Remi Award (Best of Category) and Remi Special Jury Award at the 49th Annual WorldFest-Houston. Her most recent film, From Kabul to the Freedom Quarter (2025), was shown on NPO 2 and Omrop Fryslân. She now lives in the Netherlands, where she continues to create films.
Bijan Tehrani founder and Editor in Chief of Cinema Without Borders (CWB) online- publication and Cinema Without Borders Foundation is an award-winning author of children’s books and short films. Tehrani has been a passionate advocate of human rights, which he has actively pursued as a filmmaker, historian, and -critic over the past five decades.
Bijan Tehrani has organized a numerus cultural events dealing with international cinema and social justice. The ongoing ELAC International Animation Day is an annual festival showcasing international animation and I, Immigrant International On-line Film Festival portrays the positive impact of immigrants in their new societies. Bijan is also the creator of the Bridging the Borders Award that is offered in ten international film festival in US, UK, and Australia. Bridging the Borders Award goes to the films that help bring people of the world closer together. Bijan Tehrani has won several awards and has been recognized by several film festivals and cultural institutes as Ambassador of International Cinema because of his services to the world film community through 15 years of publishing Cinema Without Borders.
Terry George, Academy winner and director of Hotel Rwanda, had this to say on the 10th anniversary of CWB:” At a time when media consolidation is threatening diverse and unique voices, Cinema Without Borders provides a forum for underrepresented perspectives and stories. Now more than ever, we need to reach across cultural, political, and national lines. Cinema Without Borders is part of this critical work.”
MAJINI
Winner of Brridging The Borders Award at Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival (receiving 2000 Euros cash award) directed by : Joshua Neubert, Victor Muhagachi
Fari a13 years old boy is afraid of deep water. He admires his 17 years old brother Danford , who goes fishing with their father every day to provide for the family. When their father falls ill, Fari must take his place on the boat. Fearing they will come home empty-handed, Danford steers the boat further and further out to sea. Alone on the open waters, the boys get caught up in an increasingly dangerous masquerade of masculinity.
