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AWARD CELEBRATION
Documentary Competition
The 16th Festival International Signes de Nuit
April 7 - 9, 2018
Berlin / Germany
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Documentary Competition
Main Award
My life without air
Bojana Burnac
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My life without air
Bojana Burnac
Croatia
2017 | 1:12:00
Bojana Burnac, born 1981 in Sisak, living in Zagreb, Croatia. My Life without Air is a thrilling view of the wondrous world of a man whose most important moments in life take place underwater during one highly controlled breath. Unrelentingly shifting the boundaries of physicality, he persists beyond the possible, believing that upon return to the surface he will once again be the best. Bio: Master of Art, Academy of Dramatic Arts, Department of Cinematography, Zagreb. Director of photography of fiction, documentary and experimental, feature and short films. First female DOP in the history of Croatian cinematography who made a feature-length narrative film. Underwater cinematographer. Free-diver. Advanced scuba rescue diver, ice diver, cave diver. Speleologist.
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Jury Statement :
Bujana Burnac captures here not only convincingly and well balanced the portrait of a sportsman dedicating his life wholeheartedly to being the best. She also creates frame by frame a physical – breath-taking – experience of loneliness and determination that sinks in for good.
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Director Statement :
I want to congratulate you and your team for making the festival that
is opening up perspective of human creativity and sensitivity. Films
are showing new perspectives about life, but your choice of films in
the program is like a mirror room - reflecting that perspectives on
authors and yourself for others. Unfortunately I couldn't be with you
on the festival, but reading the festival program I was captivated by
the energy and interests of authors for certain subject and story, and
your motivation for bringing them closer together. Signs of the Night
are attracting my curiosity for the experience of being there on the
festival.
Accepting the award for my work is always a different feeling, each
award connects with my experience of situation where it happened.
Since I have not been on the festival, I feel honored and very
grateful for the award jury gave to film My Life Without Air. I'm
feeling it as a support for all that hard moments and agony in film
making, but more important as a support to Goran ?olak, the main
character in the film, for his individuality, his nature and limits.
Goran once said "limits are illusions. They exist just in human mind."
Thank you.
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Documentary Competition
Signs Award
Dusk Chorus: Based on Fragments of Extinction
Nika Saravanja, Alessandro D’Emilia |
| The Signs Award for Documentary honors films, which express in a
surprising way sensible and perturbing aspects of reality.
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Dusk Chorus: Based on Fragments of Extinction
Nika Saravanja, Alessandro D’Emilia
Italy
2017 | 1:02:00
Follow the eco-acoustic composer David Monacchi on his quest to register a pure continuos 3D soundscape in the far away forgotten world of Ecuadorian primary rain-forests. A unique experience of listening to the imprints of the disappearing sonic heritage of millions of years of evolution.
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Jury Statement :
Dusk Chorus: Based on Fragments of Extinction - Nika Saravanja, Alessandro D’Emilia
If two loves – the love for sound and the love for nature – coincide in a photogenic character like David Monacchi, that already promises a beautiful film. But Dusk Chorus brings more than just beauty and passion. It represents in an exceptional way the need to preserve the choir of animals. Just like in a human choir, nature is not complete when one voice fails. Monacchi makes the natural place where an animal species belongs and the emptiness that it leaves behind when it disappears, tangible with frequencies. It is impossible to forget the ecstatic outbreak of sound at night. Frequencies will from now on, represent the urgency to preserve the composition.
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Documentary Competition
Night Award
The Eternals
Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd
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| The Night Award for Documentary honors films, which represent reality
in an ambivalent and enigmatic way, avoiding stereotypes of
representation and simple conclusions. |
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The Eternals
Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd
Belgium
2017 | 1:15:00
We call those who suffer from the melancholy of eternity, eternals.Convinced that death cannot triumph over their lives, they believe thatthey are doomed to wander in anticipation of the day when they will befreed from their existence.This film is a story of wandering and fleeing, on the borders of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan...
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Jury Statement :
Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd creates in 75 minutes an impressive audiovisual film story
of wandering and fleeing on the borders of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave
in Azerbaijan. The film painfully unleashes the feeling of torn souls who are doomed
forever – ghosts of genocide and war that has raged the area for over twenty years,
carrying the melancholy of the Eternals within them. The jury is impressed by the
film's formal beauty, the power of its cinematography and the beautiful intensely
arranged soundtrack. A sophisticated, disturbing, bitter, melancholic film that goes to
the core.
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Director Statement :
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Documentary Competition
Edward Snowden Award
Cause of Death: Unknown
Anniken Hoel
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| The Edward Snowden Award honors films, which offer sensitive (mostly)
unknown informations, facts and phenomenons of eminent importance, for
which the festival wishes a wide proliferation in the future. |
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Cause of Death: Unknown
Anniken Hoel
Norway
2017 | 1:27:00
After her sister died suddenly and unexpectedly while being treated with prescription antipsychotics, director Anniken Hoel begins a global investigation into the crimes of the pharmaceutical industry, the unheralded growth of psychiatric diagnoses and medication, and the corruption of the government regulatory agencies that have failed, repeatedly, to protect us. Made over a ten-year period, the film is simultaneously personal and investigative as it follows Anniken as she seeks answers regarding not only the death of her sister, but of the tens of thousands worldwide who have also met a similar fate. Deaths and damages that until now have been all but ignored. Beginning in a small town in Norway, and journeying through Scandinavia, the EU and the US, the chilling documentary-thriller CAUSE OF DEATH: UNKNOWN exposes the inner workings and motivations of a powerful industry that continually puts profits before people, and has been far too influential in defining who is normal and who is "ill".
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Jury Statement :
In the documentary "Cause of Death: Unknown" Norwegian director Anniken Hoel
takes the sudden, unexplained death of her older sister as the starting point for
investigative research into the complex power structures of the pharmaceutical
industry. Objectively and soberly, the director reveals the deadly secrets of the multi-
billion dollar industry of psychiatric medication. Here she manages a fantastic
balancing act: The moving farewell to her sister. The jury honors this film with the
Edward Snowden Award because it offers unknown information of eminent
importance, for which the festival wishes an extensive proliferation in the future. |
Director Statement :
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Documentary Competition
FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT AWARD
I am Sheriff
Teboho Edkins |
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I am Sheriff
Teboho Edkins
South Africa
2017 | 0:30:00
Sheriff was born with a girl’s body, but as the grandmother in his film recounts, he refused to wear dresses and always wanted to play with the boys. As he travels the mountain kingdom of Lesotho showing his film in remote villages and communities, Sheriff talks to his audiences about gender identity and the frustration of being born the ‘wrong’ sex. His spectators react with surprise and curiosity, but also offer remarkable warmth and acceptance that ultimately encourage him to make his choice.
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Jury Statement :
Sheriff is a prove of courage in homophobic South Africa, where people get lynched for exposing their unconventional sexual preference. And specially the prove of this preference, this film, is like a way of no return, a risk in exposure. It’s a masterful move to let the priest substantiate this nature with the Bible. Sheriff and Teboho Edkins use the medium of film to bring this new message and break taboos. And at the same time, the film makes us aware of the fluency and openness with which girls in South Africa talk about sexuality and preferences. The contrast is great, for in the West, despite our freedoms we do not talk as openly as they do. This way the film becomes a mirror. We want to express our admiration to the makers and support their fight through this award.
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Director Statement :
'I am extremely pleased to received the Special Jury FIGHT FOR
YOURSELF AWARD for my film 'I am Sheriff'.
As the title of the award suggests, it honours above all Sheriff and
the bravery of the LGBTI communities in Southern Africa.
But I think it also honours the communities in Lesotho that respond
to Sheriff with such warmth and acceptance. The fight for oneself is a
fight everyone takes part in.
Thank you very much!'
Teboho
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