VMA Faculty Hamzeh Takes Top Prize at Beverly Hills Film Fest

Faculty member Ziad Hamzeh’s feature film Irrefutable Proof took home the Golden Palm Award, awarded to the best overall film in all categories, from the 16th Annual International Beverly Hills Film Festival, held April 6–10.

The film also picked up a Best Actress award for Sheena Collette, and a Best Cinematography award for Rob Draper.

Irrefutable Proof is about an astrophysicist (Collette) who, en route to delivering a lecture on her findings that we are alone in the universe, is in a car crash that leaves her comatose. As she flits between states of consciousness, she continues on a harrowing journey to deliver the truth, and discovers some new truths.

Hamzeh, affiliated faculty in the Department of Visual and Media Arts, directed, produced, co-edited, and cast the film, which was picked up by Shoreline Entertainment for worldwide distribution. This is the second BHFF Golden Palm Hamzeh has won; his 2007 documentary Woman, about Arab civil rights activist and Nobel Prize nominee Bouthaina Shaaban, also took home the award.