One of the highlights at Film Fest Gent was La Sirène, which ranked fourth in the audience vote. In this colorful animated film, navigating between magical realism and bloody reality, Sepideh Farsi illustrates the dichotomy between hope and despair. 

The filmmaker, Farsi, exiled from Iran, revisits a conflict from her teenage years: the Iran-Iraq war that plunged the port city of Abadan into a state of siege. But even in times and places where everything and everyone seem destined for destruction, there is hope. This is embodied here by a fourteen-year-old boy and a large wooden boat.