'When We Leave' wins the Port of Ghent Public Choice Award 2010

When We Leave is a powerful and deeply human film about the struggle of a woman against the ever-dominant tradition of honour killings. In the film, Umay is tired of the abuse she receives from her husband and she runs away from Istanbul with her son Cem who is five years old. She hopes to have a better life with her parents in Berlin, but she receives a rather cool reception from them. Against her better judgement she hopes that the family bonds will be strong enough to withstand social pressure. But all too soon, Umay realises that her family are unable to deny their deeply rooted traditions and conventions and are torn between their love for her and the values of the Turkish society. When her parents decide to send Cem back to his father, Umay begs them to help her again, but finally she breaks with them for good. Then she meets Stipe, with whom she can build up a new life. She tries to become reconciled with her family, but does not understand that it is too late for this.... The Port of Ghent Public Choice Award offers a distribution bonus of 5,000 euros to support the release of the film. The Belgian distributors ABC Distribution will be showing When We Leave in cinemas from 2 March. When We Leave just pipped Loose Cannons and Eleanor's Secret to the post, each of them achieving a score of 4.63 out of 5. In total, 18,265 visitors voted using the tear-off portion from their tickets. In addition to the Port of Ghent Public Choice Award the festival also announced the Canvas Audience Award. Each year, Canvas makes a selection from the festival programme. This year the films Another Year, Ten Winters, Potiche, Submarino and Winter's Bone were awarded the Canvas label. Of the selected films, the festival audience gave Submarino by Thomas Vinterberg the highest score. VRT will purchase and broadcast the winning film.