A film which sparks emotion and laughter has scooped the main prize at this year’s Luxembourg City Film Festival.

The Other Side of Hope, by Aki Kaurismäki, was named the winner of the Grand Prix and walked away with €10,000 after the international six-person jury selected the film for its originality.

At the award ceremony on Friday evening, the jury said: “The film which we have awarded the Grand Prix – because it made us laugh, it was moving, it touches on a subject we felt was necessary during these dark times but does it in a way which is both relevant and extremely original – is The Other Side of Hope by Aki Kaurismäki.”

The Finnish film is about a restaurateur with a poker addiction who stumbles upon Khaled, a Syrian refugee, who claims the restaurant’s rubbish disposal area is his bedroom.

Their first encounter ends in a fight but with time a friendship forms between the two men and another refugee from Iraq.
‘The film opens our eyes’

The other two films which made it to the top were I Am Not Your Negro by Raoul Peck – which won the €5,000 documentary prize given by BGL Paribas – and Dark Night by Tim Sutton, which took the public prize by Orange.

Glory by Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov won the critic prize and I Am Not Madame Bovary by Feng Xiaogang had a special mention from the jury.