Danyael Sugawara won the White Iris Award at the Brussels Film Festival for Best Debut Film, for Upstream [+see also:
film review
film profile]. The project came about with screenwriter Marieke van der Pol to participate at a Dutch competition. In wanting to make a film about his relationship with his mother, the director included many autobiographical scenes, seeing as how he believes it is important to make films about people, not ideas. The film has a twofold structure – the stories of its two characters move parallel to one another as they learn to live apart, like in a game of mirrors.