Inch’Allah, Quebec director Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette’s film about a Quebec doctor working among Palestinians in the West Bank, has won the prestigious Fipresci prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Inch’Allah was declared winner on Friday of the award from a group of international film critics (Fédération internationale de la presse cinématographique).

Screened during Berlin’s Panorama program, the film stars Evelyne Brochu as a doctor working in a women’s health clinic on the Palestinian side of the wall that divides the West Bank, while living in an apartment on the Israeli side.

She is friends with both an Israeli woman serving her military service and a Palestinian woman living in poverty, but as an outsider, she struggles against being drawn into the simmering conflict between the two sides.

In addition to the Fipresci prize, director Barbeau-Lavalette was recognized as the 2012 artist for peace by the group Les artistes pour la paix (Artists for Peace.)

The film is nominated for a Canadian Screen Award and was named best Canadian film at the Vancouver Film Festival.

Inch’Allah, a Canada-France co-production, is to be released next month in France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.