Kaouther Ben Hania’s Tunisian documentary Four Daughters won the top prize of best international film at the 2023 Munich Film Festival.

The film tells the story of Olfa Hamrouni, a Tunisian mother whose two eldest daughters left the country to join the Islamic State in Libya, never to be seen again. In her exploration of Hamrouni’s story, Ben Hania hires two actors to play Olfa’s missing daughters. The docu-drama hybrid premiered in Cannes, where it won the Golden Eye for best documentary (shared with Asmae El Moudir’s The Mother of All Lies).

Omen, the feature debut of Belgian-Congolese rapper-turned-director Baloji, another Cannes entry, took Munich’s CineRebels Award, with Agniia Galdanova’s documentary Queendom, about avant-guard Russian artist Marvin, taking a special mention.

The international film critics’ Fipresci prize went to Henning Beckhoff’s Fossil, a German drama about an aging coal miner and his environmentalist daughter.

The festival’s audience award, voted on by 58,000 visitors to the Munich festival, went to Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves.

The first film in six years from the Finnish master also premiered in Cannes, where it won the festival’s jury prize.