It's rare that award-winning films in the region come from outsiders. But when short film Karayr took top prize at the inaugural HollyShorts Dubai festival in December, it did so without the scale of studio backing or institutional funding that typically defines the region’s most visible releases. Instead, its momentum was built through persistence, community support and a belief in a story that challenged conventions.
Karayr was created by Nechteh Apelian, a Lebanese-Armenian filmmaker, and Razan Takash, a Jordanian writer, producer and director. The duo began developing the story in 2017, working through script drafts long before the film’s completion. The project, which imagines a world where civilisation has collapsed and humanity has regressed into cave-dwelling s
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