Israeli actress Shira Haas won the award for Best Actress in an International Narrative Feature Film at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on Wednesday night for her performance in the film Asia, by Ruthy Pribar.
The film also won awards for Best Cinematography in an International Feature Film for its cinematographer, Daniella Nowitz, and Ruthy Pribar, its director, won the Nora Ephron Award. The Nora Ephron Award was established in memory of the late director/writer in 2013, and is given to a female writer or director who embodies Ephron’s spirit. It comes with a cash award of $25,000. Israeli director Talya Lavie won in 2014.
Asia tells the story of a young woman (Haas) who is dying, and her complex relationship with her single mother, a nurse from Russia who immigrated to Israel a few years ago.
Haas is enjoying a wave of international success thanks to her much-praised performance in the Netflix series Unorthodox, about a woman who leaves an ultra-Orthodox community in Brooklyn and moves to Berlin. Haas is also well known to international television viewers from her performance as another ultra-Orthodox woman in Shtisel.
The 24-year-old has had an extensive career in movies as well, with roles in Samuel Maoz’s Foxtrot; Tali Shalom-Ezer’s Princess, for which won the Best Actress Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival; and Marco Carmel’s Noble Savage, for which she received an Ophir Award for Best Supporting Actress.
The Tribeca jury, which included director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) and actor William Hurt (Kiss of the Spider Woman), issued a statement about Haas’s work in Asia that read, “Her face is a never-ending landscape in which even the tiniest expression is heartbreaking; she’s an incredibly honest and present actress who brings depth to everything she does.”
The Tribeca Film Festival chose to proceed online rather than cancel or postpone due to the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to the juries, film critics and industry professionals were given online access to the films. The prizes were awarded in an online presentation that featured two of the festival founders, Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal.
Alice Wu’s The Half of It, a rom-com about a lesbian high school nerd, won the US Narrative Feature Competition. The Half of It will be available on Netflix starting on Friday.
Tribeca is the second high-profile film festival that has chosen to go online rather than cancel or postpone until the coronavirus crisis is over. In March, the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin, Texas, made its films available to audiences online and gave awards.
The Tribeca Film Festival and YouTube announced on Monday that they would partner with many film festivals around the world to present a free online festival from May 29-June 7, called "We Are One: A Global Film Festival” (see related story).
The Jerusalem Film Festival, which was set to open in July but which has been postponed, is one of those participating, along with Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Venice and many others.