The 7th edition of Amal ended last Saturday 31st October in the Teatro Principal with a closing ceremony in which the winners were awarded. The event was the highlight of nine days of cinema, dialogue and tolerance in the heart of Santiago de Compostela. The winners, many institutional representatives, authorities, members of the jury, directors and the media came together to celebrate Amal and to enjoy the concert of the French-Algerian musician Fayçal Salhi.    

In the seven years of existence the Festival has experienced a progressive growth. This year Amal lasted two days longer than its normal period of one week. Comparing Amal 2009 with the foregoing edition, recent statistics show an increasing number of spectators of 7% which shows the growing interest and the expectations which increase year after year.  

The category with the highest number of spectators have been Feature Fiction Films with 45% of the total amount of spectators, followed by documentations with 28% and the children films with 16%. The great interest for documentaries is not only visible in the increasing number of spectators but also in the award list: the Amal Audience Award goes to Al Nakba, a 200-minute-length documentary dealing with the occupation of Palestine.

This year, the organization aimed especially the interaction with online users on the web page http://www.festivalamal.es/- anyone could participate in the challenge Amal Express and selected short films could be seen online. During October there have been about 280.000 accesses to the site. Compared with the numbers of Amal 2008 the statistics represent an important increase concerning the online activity. 

The festival was decisively supported by AECID, the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development, an organization which belongs to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. AECID defines the knowledge of cultural diversity as one of the most important aims to make social existence and cohesion possible. Since 2003 the Foundation works hard to enable the dialog between the Arabic and the Occidental world using film.