2026 Nominees

Half Moon

Selfmade Films, NTR, NPO-fonds, CoBO, Filmfonds

NETHERLANDS

- Arts & Culture

Half Moon is a deeply human documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Frank Scheffer about music as empathy, friendship and resilience in a fractured world. The film follows internationally celebrated Syrian clarinettist and composer Kinan Azmeh, born in Damascus, living in New York, as he creates and performs while separated from his homeland by war. Rather than a conventional artist portrait, Half Moon offers an intimate meditation on exile, belonging, and connection. Through performances, rehearsals, and private moments of reflection, the film shows how music becomes a shared language—1 that carries memory, grief, humor, and hope. Central to the film are friendships that sustain creativity and provide a sense of home when geography no longer can. With a musical, patient cinematic style, Scheffer avoids rhetoric and spectacle, inviting the audience to listen closely. Half Moon is a quiet yet powerful testament to the enduring human need for empathy, solidarity, and connection through art.