THE AWARDS OF SIMFEST – 2020
The Prize for section: Video
CYCLE , author: Ashkan Khoshsorour, IRAN, Islamic Republic of
It is hard to tell a story in less than 2 minutes. Ashkan Khoshsorour has done it. He brings in front the universal infernal cycle of domestic violence. The strong images, without being brutal, will lead us at the end where a question remains: ”Who and how will break the cycle?”
The Prize at the section: Student Project, nonfiction
BIFURCATION POINT, author: Leonid Kardsh, Russian Federation
The Russian School of Film always astonished because of its creators performances. Due to his competing film, Leonid Kardash proved that he learned well his maesters’s lessons. A alert script, impecablly shot and directed, suggests us to eagerly wait his future endeavours.
Mention at the section: Student Project, nonfiction
„Tamanna. Unadorned Wishes”, director: Mayank Shewale, India
There are places where the love between a girl and a boy, belonging at religions different, is forbidden by the strict customs of some Indian communities. The film presents such a drama.
The Prize at tha section: Student Project, fiction
TRIBE, director: Sergi Merchan, Spain
A merciless satire of work relationships in the modern world, the Sergi Merchan’s movie had impressed the Jury by its directing achievement. The humor and the character’s complexity contributed to the making of a modern film, which has the great quality of total captivating its audience.
Honorable Mention at the section: Student Project, fiction
WINFIELD HISTORICAL TIME, author: Julia Cowle, United States
A captivating story, delivered in shiny images. The Julia Cowle’s film make you optimistic at the end and leave you in a wellfare state. A noticed performance, especially in these troubled times
The Prize for Investigation Journalism
A GLOBAL MOBILE JOURNALISM, author: James Mahon, UK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_9MIJufWJQ
”A Global Mobile Journalism” is a genuine scientific paper, made in audio/video format. With great accuracy combined with modern directing, James Mahon show us the newest form of journalism, with its pros and cons. This film it ia a ”must see” for anyone who works as a TV journalist.
The Prize at the section: Productions about Minorities
CHELKANS – KURMAH BAIGOL, author: Alexei Borisov, Russian Federation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPAcUhjtlg
An excellent film about the ethnic and cultural identity rescuing efforts of a Siberian People, The Chelcans. The film presents the last remains of a People who, ages ago, hunted all over the Taiga.
Alexei Borisov revealed perfectly the cultural conflict in which the simple ones are sitting ducks.
The Prize for the section: Animation
„iRony”, author: radheya Jegatheva, Australia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM8fMIW0q-E
The film, which starts with the greetings: Welcome in the new era: the digital life!, is an acute and ingeniousinvitation to about the danger of the alienationprovoked by the digital technology.
Mention at the section: Animation
“Sigh”, author: Vlad Bolgarin, Republic of Moldavia
A beautiful metaphor of the hope, which the children bring to us, it is sustained by captivating animations, accompanied by humor.
The Prize at the section: Touristic Film
Stalking Chernobyl, director: Iara Lee, United States
Stalking Chernobyl starts by showing the vibrant life of the city of Pripyat before the nearby nuclear reactor exploded in the international disaster of 1986. Swathes of the surrounding area were contaminated with high levels of radiation and Pripyat was evacuated virtually overnight.
In recent years, the abandoned city has become probably the most popular tourist destination in Ukraine. This fascinating film is made through the eyes of the unofficial explorers, intrepid adventurers known as ‘stalkers’, who risk contamination to see at first hand the decaying detritus if this once proud city with its intriguing remnants of Soviet life, and photograph themselves amongst the eerily deserted tower blocks, empty swimming pool and surrounding forests as nature slowly regains its grasp.
Mention at the section: Touristic film
„See You At The Market!”, directors: Lai Li-Mei, Anita Ho, Taiwan
A wonderful film, full of dynamism, about the biggest market from the East of Taiwan. Beyond the diversity of products, we discover friendly people, many of them from the ethnic group Amis, together with their life stories.
The Prize for the section: Entertainment
SOS!!! Author: Sergey Shevcenko,Germany
This is a format as a reality show, in which a character, Sergey Shevcenco, travels from Irkutsk to Thailand and Cambodia without money, without contactswhitout knoledge about foreign languages and with a simple goal: to find a job. He has a 100 euro bank-note in an envelope with the logo of the TV program that he represents it, SOS. The bet is to come back with the bank-note
The film exploits the imagination of the character whu succeeds to survive, to attract the sympathy and the compassion of the inhabitants from Thailand whogive to him food from their poverty and suppot him to survive. The film emphasizes the humanity of the simple people, ready to believe a person who asktheir support. The production contains miscellaneous frameworks, recorded from various un gles end with an editing which reminds the technique of invisible cut.
The Prize for Image
Soyga, director: Roman Fitilyov, Russian Federation
The film is dedicated to the remembrance of the former forest industry, which fell into disrepair after the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Director Roman Fitilyov uses with maximum refinement all the elements of television grammar: moving frames, a composition reminiscent of the Russian school of painting, refined editing, zoom after zoom, fugue lines reminiscent of the paintings of Ivan Shishkin and Arhip Kuindji.
Filming on a train that has an uneven embankment is a challenge for any image director. The people filmed seem resigned to a life without a horizon.
The Prize at the section: Fiction
I,Zohreh, director: Siamak Ebrahimi, Iran, Islamic Republic of
Young Zohreh is an Iranian sportswoman who was banned from practicing in Iran. She decides to leave the country, in secret. She packed her things, took them to a friend, but is discovered by the one who loved her and who seeks to prevent her from running away. There are conflicts, beatings, threats that those who lived in communism relived watching the film.
The drama of the film is specific to a totalitarian society: the desire for freedom versus absolute social control.
The Prize at the section: Reportage
Transit, director: Mariam El Marakeshy, Turkey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FljD8CCdUCo
Beautifully shot, Transit tells the harrowing tale of refugees fleeing conflict and war only to be trapped in limbo in a so-called ‘camp’, Moria, on the otherwise idyllic Mediterranean island of Lesvos.
The film gives a human face to the desperate inhabitants, tricked by callous smugglers, using poetry and clowning to entertain the hordes of children hoping to be allowed to go beyond the razor wire.
The Prize at the section: Documentary
„Rebels With A Cause”, author: Dobrivoie Kerpenisan, Germany
The author came from Germany Timisoara, a few days before the 1989’s Revolution started. He took photos with what was happened in that locality, and after 30 years he captured in the film the destiny of some of them who participated at the street movements.
Mention by the jury at the section: Documentary
Wicca Incarnate, director Katya Kan, United Kingdom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX_hizvlsAw
Katya Kan’s quirky look at the history of Wicca, Witchcraft and Paganism in England and Wales is brought to life with Shakespearean poetry, medieval text, archive photography and a practicing priestess.
Debunking the broomstick-flying, pointy hat, Halloween myth of Wiccans, this highly informative experimental film explores their connection with nature and the seasons, use of ritual and the role of wise women.
The special Prize of the Jury
The Special Prize of the Jury is awarded to the production The Bajos won’t Celebrate, by Tariq Akreyi from Iraq. The film is an evocation of the genocide made by the occupancy of the troops of the Islamic state DAESH on Yazidis locality, which have Kurdish population. As a respect for the death people, the Yazidis’s inhabitants don’t celebrate yet Eid al-Fitr, the festival of the breaking the post, which marks the end of Ramadhan.
The production benefits by the touching testimonials of the survivers, expressive recorded and by a narrative that succeeds to explain even to them are not familiar with the complicated world of the Middle East. The tragedy of the simple people who do quietly their activity in their communities and who wake up, all at once, in the whirpool of a mass kill.
The Grand Prize of SIMFEST Festival
This year, the duty of the jury was more difficult than all other editions. The Festival took place in speciale terms: online judging, individual scores and with meetings on ZOOM for the productions which had equal score.
This edition registered the biggest number of submitted productions, of remarkable quality, and that made more difficult the final selection.
The jury decided after a whole afternoon of debates. The Grand Prize of the SIMFEST Festival was awarded to the reportage BELOVED, from Iran, Islamic Republic of, a film by yaser Talebi. The film brings to us a piece of life, with universal value> a 80 years old women lives alone in the mountains, with her cows, which are her friends, confidants and which listen to her and follow her orders. Her 11 children didn’t visited her in mountains since a year, but they want to sell the cows, for money. The film ends with the heroine in tears talking about her children who left her. We meet such situations, of parents abandoned by children, in all cultures.
The film is a pleading for love and humanity.