AWARDS OF THE 22ND EDITION
“GOLDEN OLIVE TREE” EUROPEAN FEATURE COMPETITION
Golden Olive Tree-Cristina Soldano Award for Best Film
to
Fox in a Hole
by
Arman T. Riahi
“The theme of loneliness runs through all the characters in this story. The only way to break down this lack of communication comes through a common language where words are not needed. Music, painting, open the doors of expressiveness, of freedom. In the film, this hope turns into certainty. Art will always set us free”.
Special Jury Award
ex aequo to
A Good Man
by
Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar
“For creating a strong emotional story of a non traditional couple and their desire for a child and all the questions that it raises nowadays about gender, identity, roles and how stigmatic people can be even to the closest ones”.
and
When I’m Done Dying
by
Nisan Dag
“Energetic debut film of youth lost, the mixture of mediums is done with great efficiency, always there to intensify the cinematic experience and never out of context. The story is embedded within a culture where tradition is in constant contradiction to the aspirations of the new generation, and in this pursuit for meaning innocence is lost, and hopefully found again”.
Best Cinematography Award
to
Psychosis in Stockholm
by
Maria Bäck
“The camera plunges the viewer into a constant swing between an inner journey into the folds of the soul and memories for the mother, and an initiatory journey to mark the entry into the age of responsibility for the daughter.
The light and the movement poetically reflect the growing psychological malaise, the inner disorientation that merges with the discovery of a city to be known, and finally translates in a brilliant way the fleeting border between memories and reality”.
Best Screenplay Award
to
My Little Sister
by
Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond
“Beautifully constructed and superbly written and performed, shot with elegance and patience, this is a film one cannot easily dismiss. With intelligence and masterfulness the story takes us to an emotional journey of love, acceptance, sibling connection, and the earning for life. Word is more than a word, through evocative and imaginative dialogue the filmmakers propose a deeper dimension in the portrayal of true connection”.
SNGCI Award for Best European Actor
to
Nina Hoss
for
My Little Sister
by
Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond
“For the profound and natural humanity of her performance as a sister who dedicates herself to her brother, who has suddenly fallen ill, in which she manages to express the most intimate nuances, to the point of touching all the strings of fraternal love”.
FIPRESCI Award
to
A Good Man
by
Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar
“For its audacity, courage, originality and progressive vision of identity and gender.”
Cineuropa Award
to
Only Human
by
Igor Ivanov
“The film shows six faces, six episodes linked through a dark comic thread. Lost characters met inconsistently in a modern metropolis in the all-round quest for means to survive. The unemployed graduate becomes undertaker, the widow becomes a nun, priests gamble and the gangsters rule the city. Despite the tragedy, the film amuses and gives hope through the eyes of a child, when everything seems to be lost”.
Audience Award
to
Only Human
by
Igor Ivanov
“PUGLIA SHOW” SHORT FILM COMPETITION
CNC – National Short Film Centre Award, Augustus Color Award and Panalight Award
to
Perla
by
Alessandro Porzio
“For the disillusioned and poetic gaze that the director casts on things: a gaze made up of oxymora, of opposites that coexist and feed off each other, that account for the contradictions of men and the necessary ambiguity of the cinematographic image. Here, the rough solitude of the son corresponds with the affectionate determination of the daughter and the pride and lucid sense of defeat of the father, Fabrizio, who nevertheless has won everything in his profession. What remains is the silence, the recognition of one another not in spite of but because of the silence, or because of a few ruminated words, and because of the cold, of the night that is the space that cancels the distance once and for all”.
Special Mention
to
I don’t Wanna Be Myself Anymore
by
Angelo Buongiorno, Teresa Carlino, Marta Palmarini
“For the effectiveness of the mise-en-scene and of the theoretical reflection, whereby identity becomes a merely cinematographic matter. Stop motion as a means for expressing an endless repetition of being and disappearing, between a stop and a movement; precisely as a mechanism, an imaginative device, between one cut and another, of the possibility of existing. Which is a possibility for words, for sentences: a possibility for signs”.
Rai Cinema Channel Prize
to
Klod
by Giuseppe Marco Albano
“A basketball to stay afloat in the deep and dangerous waters of the Mediterranean Sea, a sea that unites and sometimes divides, a sea in which the dreams of a young Albanian immigrant float. He will be the protagonist of a story of inspiration, redemption and hope for those who need to rebuild their lives”.
Unisalento Award
to
Perla
by
Alessandro Porzio
“For the descriptive cinematography which, with an accurate colour palette, manages to convey the contrast between the family and public dimensions. For the characterisation of the characters, the direction of the actors and their mature interpretation, aided by the essentiality of the dialogues. For the direction that succeeds in conveying the delicacy of the theme dealt with”.
MARIO VERDONE AWARD
to
Alice Filippi
for
Out of My League
“A great little film that manages to transform, even in colour, the tradition of the ‘dramedy’ most loved by young people all over the world. Out of My League starts with tears but becomes a pop story in which even an impossible love manages to win over the theme of illness. Alice lightly portrays the value of vitality and irony, making the emotions of an unlucky girl literally vibrant without asking whether her ‘bad luck’ is all the fault of the stars, but playing on the normality of her impossible desires. The result is a film of the kind that Hollywood knows how to make very well, to which, however, its direction adds something politically ‘incorrect’ that wins the courage to believe in it at all costs”.
Special Mention
to
Francesco Dafano and Luca Della Grotta
for
Trash
“A story and a great work in animation, all Italian, which entertains but above all speaks, with tenderness, not only of solidarity but of resilience, addressing the social issue of reusing waste. Trash is also a story about the value of second chances that everyone can get, inviting the protagonists, as well as the youngest viewers, to have the courage to look for them, perhaps together”.
EMIDIO GRECO AWARD
Li Paradisi
by
Manuel Marini
“There is a terrain in which reality overpowers cinema and in which cinema succeeds in portraying reality with disarming honesty. It is on this terrain that the short film winning the ninth edition of the Emidio Greco Award comes to life, with its never excessive cinematography and calibrated, engaging acting. For the realism of the story, for its symbolism which is never sterile and never an end in itself, and for the ability to synthesise the soul of a territory in powerful images”.
ROTARY CLUB LECCE AWARD
La macchina delle immagini di Alfredo C.
by
Roland Sejko
“La macchina delle immagini di Alfredo C.” is a work that we have chosen to award for its successful correspondence with the value horizon of the Rotary association, with particular reference to the importance of past experiences to improve and project ourselves into the future with greater awareness. Roland Sejko’s film, by underlining the crucial importance of archiving and by assigning to cinema a documentary and historical memory function, reflects deeply on the moral sense of image production. The protagonist’s camera becomes a time machine that allows the spectator to access a repressed past and shed light on the great collective story of the Italians in Albania during and after the Second World War; the journey through memory, punctuated by precious archive images, is accompanied by an extraordinary guide, actor Pietro De Silva in the role of cameraman Alfredo, and by Riccardo Giagni’s wonderful music”.
