juries award short films

Juries award short films in International Film Festival Rotterdam

 

During the IFFR 2007 Awards Ceremony for Short Films on Monday, January 29, 2007 in Theatre Lantaren / Venster in Rotterdam, the winning short films of the 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam were announced. The three Tiger Awards for Short Film were granted to Video Game by Vipin Vijay (India), Hinterland by Geoffrey Boulangé (France) and Bayrak (The Flag) by Köken Ergun (Turkey). Honourable Mentions were awarded to Vom innen; von aussen (About the Inside; From the Outside) by Albert Sackl (Austria) and You Can Walk Too by Cristina Lucas (Spain). The Prix UIP Rotterdam Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards was given to Amin by David Dusa (France/Germany/The Netherlands).

Tiger Awards Competition for Short Film
For the second edition of the Tiger Awards Competition for Short Film, twenty-seven films were selected of no more than sixty minutes in length, and the majority had their world, international or European premiere during IFFR 2007. Each of the three Tiger Awards for Short Film comes with a prize of 3,000 Euro. The jury for Tiger Awards for Short Film comprised Austrian filmmaker Peter Tscherkassky, New York-based media artist, theorist, curator and translator Keith Sanborn and Dutch artist Gijs Frieling (Jury President).
The Tiger Awards for Short Film are sponsored by the Prins Bernhard Cultuur Fonds, the Tiger Business Lounge and INHOLLAND University.

The jury statements on the three winners:

Video Game by Vipin Vijay (India, 2006)

“Video Game is yet another illustration that there’s more to the Cinema of India than can be contained with the received wisdom which seeks to encompass it by reference to a dualism opposing Satyajit Ray to Bollywood. Video Game shows a relentless, complex post-modern intelligence as it processes everything within its view, within its memory, within its wide range of cultural references. Its title is an index to this complexity, as it evokes not only digital game space as an aspect of the real, but the pursuit of video within the understanding of a game, replete with strategies, movements, and counter-movements. A new kind of road movie, indeed.”

Hinterland by Geoffrey Boulangé (France, 2007)

“In Hinterland by Boulanger we are taken on a trip into the mountains with a single mother and her two sons, about 8 and 10 years of age. The walk through rocky forests with brooks and across hot meadows is shown with slow movements and large static cinemascope landscapes in which the characters need minutes to walk through from one side to the other. On the highest plateau the mother takes a nap while both her sons wander further. She awakes on the same moment that David, the oldest boy, finds a dying horse. When she arrives at the scene, the boy and the mother quarrel about what to do. The mother continues with the youngest son to find help but David stays and kills the horse by squashing its head with a large rock.
Apart from the visual grandeur and classical beauty, the author brings the initiation theme and other mythical and psychological connotations of the narrative with courage and precision. The film seems to be exceptionally internally balanced and streams like a river. It is a clear step towards a long feature film and we are happy to award it with a Tiger Award for Short Film.”

Bayrak (The Flag) by Köken Ergun (Turkey, 2007)

“Bayrak (The Flag) by Köken Ergun could be considered an extraordinarily elegant film: It documents Turkish school children involved in a patriotic ceremony taking place on Children’s Day in a giant football stadium, simply using two handheld mini DV cameras. Without further commentary, these two perspectives of the ceremony are conjoined using the basic strategy of a split screen. The result could hardly be more effective, moving and claustrophobic. We become witnesses to the indoctrination of the young in a manner that could not be more frontal. But before we cast aspersion, this film should also remind us to consider the effective though hidden strategies of indoctrination here at home.”


The jury statements on the Honourable Mentions:
“The first Honourable Mention goes to the film Vom innen; von aussen (About the Inside; From the Outside) by Albert Sackl (Austria). This film is clearly the product of an obsession with the idea of film as an artform in its own rite: Albert Sackl created a grand homage to Eadweard Muybridge and Edgar Marey, pioneers of the study of movement in time and space. Sackl succeeds in using the single frame function of a 16 mm. Bolex camera to dismantle the basic elements of conventional filmic time and space. He creates an alternative and overwhelming synthesis of these elements. We join the physical body of the artist on a trip that reveals dimensions of the filmic apparatus never seen before.”

“We can hardly think of You Can Walk Too by Cristina Lucas (Spain) without breaking into helpless laughter. It utterly destroys the master metaphor of condescension that has denigrated women’s contributions to the arts. And it does so with elegant visual force, mastering a metaphor of dominance, reversing its power against those who have repeatedly wielded it in pursuit of mastery. Turning back the corrosive force of this form of wit, to consign it forever to The Dictionary of Received Ideas. The humour deployed here is indeed a force to be reckoned with; we look forward to encountering it again and again.”

Prix UIP Rotterdam 2007
For the second edition of the ‘Prix UIP Rotterdam Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards’ fifteen European fiction films, of up to fifteen minutes, have been selected. The ‘Prix UIP Rotterdam Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards’ jury comprised jury president Keren Cytter (visual artist and writer, Germany), José Nuno Rodrigues (director Curtas Vila Do Conde – Internacional Film Festival, Portugal) and Jan Doense (director Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, The Netherlands).The European Film Academy and UIP present a Prix UIP at fourteen film festivals across Europe. The prize includes 2,000 Euro and an automatic nomination for the European Film Awards. The 1,600 members of the European Film Academy then vote for the winner.

The jury statement on the winner:
Amin by David Dusa (France/Germany/The Netherlands, 2006)

“Fifteen very different short films were nominated for the Prix UIP at the 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam. Out of those fifteen the jury ultimately chose a film in which intimate camerawork and precise editing are combined to create an atmosphere that shifts fluently from naive child’s play into uncomfortable realism. The winner of the Prix UIP is Amin, directed by David Dusa (France/Germany/The Netherlands).”

David Dusa’s Amin is a stand-alone excerpt from his feature film project France, currently developed at the Amsterdam based international feature film coaching centre Binger Filmlab. For the second time in a row a filmmaker of Binger Filmlab wins the price; last year it was Meander by Joke Liberge.

KPN One Take Awards
The jury, consisting of Paulien Dresscher, Martin Takken and Ingrid Walschots, awarded the following One Take films (films shot on mobile phones):
The winner of the One Take Student Competition is Brother by Kerim Bersaner; the winner of the One Take Directors Competition is Pathe Ballet by Adam Sekuler, film programmer of the North West Forum (Seattle, USA).

The second edition of the One Take Competition was organised by International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) and the NPS Short Film Online, in cooperation with Willem de Kooning Academy (Rotterdam) and KPN. Films consisted of one take of a two minute maximum, and were made by students of Willem de Kooning Academy and IFFR festival guests. The winners can be viewed on www.shoobidoo.nl and on screens at the IFFR festival locations. The award consists of 500 euro and a James Bond-phone.

New Arrivals Award
The winners of New Arrivals, the online platform for short films of the International Film Festival Rotterdam and the NPS (Dutch public television network) were announced on Sunday January 28. The New Arrivals Award was given to Buutvrij by Hesdy Lonwijk (The Netherlands) for “a film which looks very professional and in which a small boy plays a beautiful role”.