CAIRO, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese film The Botanist achieved a big success at the 46th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), which concluded here Friday night, winning the best Asian feature film award, or the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) Award.

The film, directed by Jing Yi, also received a special mention in the International Critics' Week Competition.

Ahmed al-Saeed, a jury member of the NETPAC Award, said The Botanist stands out for offering a rare cinematic vision defined by its quiet confidence and mature restraint, noting that the director shapes the film's world through emotion and imagery rather than plot.

"With a gentle, poetic touch, the director portrays the bond between the Kazakh boy and the Han girl as a soft whisper of coexistence, turning ethnic diversity in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region into a purely human and aesthetic experience," al-Saeed told Xinhua.

He said the film's strength lies in its ability to transform nature into a spiritual space the boy breathes in, pointing out that mountains, valleys and shifting light become a narrative language of their own, mirroring the director's solitude and the subtle changes surrounding him.

"Taken together, these elements reveal The Botanist as an impressively mature debut, crafted with sensitivity, attentive to the pulse of people and landscapes. Its human sincerity, fused with its quiet, lyrical visual style, is ultimately what earns the film its deserved recognition," he said.

Launched in 1976, the region's oldest annual film festival concluded a ten-day celebration at the Cairo Opera House, with the Palestinian cause at its heart.

CIFF President Hussein Fahmy delivered a moving address, highlighting cinema's power to document reality and preserve truth.

Following Fahmy's remarks, the image of six-year-old Palestinian child Hind Rajab, who was killed by the Israeli army during the Gaza war, appeared on screen, accompanied by the audio recording of her final call for help.

"The power of cinema lies in its ability to document, and to keep real stories alive and indelible, regardless of how some may try to ignore or overlook them. Thus, Hind, her story, and her voice remain present. And the children who resemble her are not just statistics, but real human beings of flesh and blood," Fahmy said. ■