In 2013 Gittoes suffered from serious health problems, having both surgery for prostate cancer and a double knee replacement. He was also hospitalised with internal stomach bleeding. Nevertheless, he took up a position as artist in residence in Syracuse, New York, where he developed and produced the "synthages" referred to above, as a new means of working through his experiences at Kibeho nearly 20 years before. In 2014, undeterred by health problems, he returned to Jalalabad to begin work on his next film, "Snow Monkey", for which he received funding from Film Australia. He returned to Sydney in early 2015 and "Snow Monkey" premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August 2015. With its searching portrayal of the lives of young people in Jalalabad, "Snow Monkey" won the Audience Award at the Biografilm Festival in Bologna, Italy, in June 2016.