Scripted

A romantic comedy about an Israeli-Palestinian couple based on the real life story of creators Nayef Hammoud and Gal Rosenbluth, the development series Non-Issue won the Paramount+ drama prize at this year’s MIA Market, which wrapped its ninth edition on an optimistic note. Of course, well before Friday’s closing award ceremony, the heartbreaking crisis in the Middle East cast a heavy pall over an otherwise ebullient audiovisual market, often informing conversations professional and otherwise.

Chosen by a panel of industry experts, Paramount+ Award winner Non-Issue follows an Israeli-Palestinian couple from Tel Aviv to Berlin, only to find that the political and cultural tensions they hoped to leave behind followed in tow. Hammoud and Rosenbluth compare the series’ uneasy comic tone to that of “Ramy” and “Atlanta,” promising “a romantic comedy that takes on all mundane fears of a romantic relationship, and adds the complex relationships between societies, cultures, nationalities and a shared existential dread.”

The series is produced by Efrat Dror for Herzelia Studio.

Following a trio of female bodybuilders navigating the contradictory social mores of contemporary Turkey, Nursen Çetin Köreken’s “A Story of Three Girls” won the best film co-production prize, while Tommaso Pitta’s deep dive into fraternal disarray “Jazz Suite for a Dysfunctional Family” claimed the Tuscany Film Studio award – an accolade meant to foster homegrown talent.