23e Festival international Signes de Nuit - Paris / 4-12, 2025
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Christophe Karabache |
Lebanon / 2024 / 0:39:54 |
In search of an unknown and anonymous killer living in a zone that is burned and destroyed...
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JURY DECLARATION :
Like a vital quest, Zombie Vortex was clearly made out of a sense of urgent necessity. The jury felt that this deeply moving film deserved recognition for its powerful subject matter and bold direction: an unsettling camera scans a devastated world in search of a supposed killer. Zombie Vortex is explosive; its director, Christophe Karabache, films and edits as if shooting to save his own skin. The jury was moved by this radical and deeply committed film.x
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SIGNS AWARD
The Signs Award honors films, which treat an important subject in an original and convincing way
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Ian Gibbins |
Australia / 2025 / 0:07:10 |
"they used to place coins on the eyelids of the dead so they could not follow the lives of the living ... surrounded by ocean we find no clear water ... in the absence of fire our soft tissues are burning ... yet our eyes stay open ..." Beginning in March 2025, large areas of South Australian coastal waters have been devastated by a harmful algal bloom, leading to mass mortalities of uncountable numbers of fish, invertebrates and other marine life. The causes are complex but all arise from the unmitigated effects of anthropogenic climate change.
The video has been made from images of fish that have been killed by the bloom and washed up on beaches along the eastern side of Gulf St Vincent. The audio was created from samples taken from videos of living fish, crabs and squid recorded at Seacliff beach, South Australia, in January - February 2025, before the bloom hit. The text is what the fish might say to us, if only they could...
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JURY DECLARATION :
The jury notes and appreciates the highly controlled minimalist aesthetic of Deadeye: An eyelidless eye stares back at us, life seems to have drained from it; the cornea softens, life escapes from the pupil, corrosive sand invades it. Through this single emblematic image, Ian Gibbins's Deadeye places us eye to eye with the destruction we have caused. The fish die in silence, yet these vacant stares are a cry that the jury hears and applauds.
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DIRECTOR STATEMENT:
Since March 2025, a huge area of ocean in South Australia has been affected by a harmful algal bloom, killing millions of sea creatures and affecting the lives of thousands of coastal residents. Due to my diverse background in many areas of science, I have become heavily involved in citizen science projects trying to document and explain the effects of the bloom. In addition to giving talks at public forums, I have made surveys of some of the beaches, recording and identifying the different types of dead marine life that have washed up. This video is made from some of the images of dead fish taken during those recordings. While the immediate causes of the bloom are complex and are still being analysed, there is no doubt the fundamental driver is anthropogenic climate change and human-induced habitat destruction. This is a lesson for us all, no matter where we live.
I greatly appreciate the words of the jury.
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NIGHT AWARD
The Night Award honors films, which are able to balance ambiguity and complexity characterized by enigmatic mysteriousness and subtleness, which keeps mind and consideration moving
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Richard Peter Tuohy |
Australia / 2024 / 0:14:00 |
I used to find the dusk a very unsettling time, as though the approaching night was something to be feared. It was as if, once night fell you could not flee, and had to face unspecified consequences. Maybe the land remembers and the night will reveal what we might have done...
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JURY DECLARATION :
The jury was captivated by a mise-en-scène that explores the night through an alternation of wide shots capturing the immensity of the landscape and close-ups revealing minute organic activity. Precise lighting and the occasional use of time-lapse transform the darkness into a vibrant space, where the earth and the forest unfold an autonomous and surprising breath. This technical and sensitive approach unveils an intense and discreet life in motion. The film thus becomes a cinematic meditation on the persistent vitality of nocturnal life.
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Three Hundred Thousand Kilometers Per Second
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Trois-cent mille kilomètre par secomde
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Clément Courcier |
France / 2024 / 0:16:19 |
A woman stands at her window, staring out into the summer night, when a luminous body enters and bursts into the atmosphere. Time is suspended, and the woman takes a journey through space and time, at three hundred thousand kilometres per second...
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JURY DECLARATION :
For its unique artistic vision, an interstellar, wordless road movie that captures the essence of the connection between humanity and the cosmos, the jury praised the technical mastery and narrative creativity, where lighting and 3D animation become the vehicles for an introspective and universal journey, gracefully retracing the history of the world back to its foundational mystery.
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Malaz Usta |
Netherlands / 2024 / 0:11:00 |
Exiles are asked questions concerning their life, (plans), and reasons for (their choices). The film tries to communicate the feelings of the displaced when being confronted with such questions which are drawn from the director's memory. A parody of misinformation and of broken systems, and an exploration of feelings of confusion, loneliness, and uncertainty.
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JURY DECLARATION :
The Special Mention goes to Space_Invaders.exe by Malaz Usta. The film treats a crucial subject through a remarkable integration of diverse media, materials and archival footage, offering an exceptional and inventive approach with this emotional, complex and smooth storytelling. By combining mixed media, inmersive sound, and even modified video games, the film deepens our perception and reveals a profound sense of human vulnerability beneath the visible surface.
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MENTION FOR THE SIGNS AWARD
The Signs Award honors films, which treat an important subject in an original and convincing way
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Eleonore de Montesquiou |
Estonia / 2023 / 0:05:42 |
February 2015, Vladimir Putin’s opponent, Boris Nemtsov, was assassinated not far from the Kremlin in Moscow. Images of pain and protest, texts by Pablo Neruda are an open call for reflection in this short film.
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JURY DECLARATION :
The jury highlighted the striking mise-en-scène, which captures the tension of a night of protest through a phone camera, creating a sense of immediate immersion and urgency. The use of archival footage, often dark and blurred, reinforces the atmosphere of pain and political urgency. This raw and direct approach, where the act of filming itself becomes an act of risk and witness, lends a raw emotional power to the images. The film thus constructs fragments of a historic night.
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MENTION FOR THE SIGNS AWARD
The Signs Award honors films, which treat an important subject in an original and convincing way
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Telemach Wiesinger |
Germany / 2025 / 0:14:43 |
"Transit" is a 16mm film poem with a soundtrack by Martin Bergande, a visual journey across the borders of the EU to the edges of Europe with the aid of tangential force and the means of transport car, train, ship and aeroplane across the borders of the EU to the edges of Europe.
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JURY DECLARATION :
The jury praises the direction and poetic power of a film that transcends mere observation. Through rigorous black-and-white visual language and fluid tracking shots, it transforms wide shots of cities, the sea, and trains into a meditation on movement. This minimalist and silent cinematic approach invites the viewer into a contemplative reverie before the vastness, evoking both a physical journey across Europe and a timeless introspection.
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MENTION FOR THE NIGHT AWARD
The Night Award honors films, which are able to balance ambiguity and complexity characterized by enigmatic mysteriousness and subtleness, which keeps mind and consideration moving
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Jan Locus |
Belgium / 2025 / 0:06:06 |
In an elongated pan, mountain landscapes and misty images of animals are presented in an ethereal, ghostly way. Locus uses found footage black and white photographs of UFO observations from the 1950s and 60s. The UFOs are removed from these photos to seamlessly merge the remaining landscapes. Unforeseen animal death, often reported in UFO sightings, serves as a metaphor for human influence on nature. Intruders explores the boundary between science fiction and reality, investigating themes of reverse colonization, ecology, and human environmental impact.
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JURY DECLARATION :
Mention goes to Intruders by Jan Locus. With an elegant pan movement, immersive misty sound and marvelous landscapes, the film creates an atmosphere of mystery, conflict, and perception of a hopeless nature world. The imminent appearance of the obscurity and a remarkable use of sound, the film establishes a very pressured environment and almost hopeless experience of the obscurity of our times.
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MENTION FOR THE NIGHT AWARD
The Night Award honors films, which are able to balance ambiguity and complexity characterized by enigmatic mysteriousness and subtleness,which keeps mind and consideration moving
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Jon Hammerbeck, Neil Harvey |
United States / 2025 / 0:10:24 |
A sound and image response to these times, death and life. Life is a mixed bag, and we grab it because it’s our only bag. It’s plush with knives and we pick it up, and find in it sweets and nuts, and blood. Ruin has its joys, and triumph its sorrows.
"You don't make the movie. The movie makes you."
Jean-Luc Godard
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JURY DECLARATION :
A Mentionod the Night Award goes to Candleknife by Jon Hammerbeck and Neil Harvey. The film unfolds as an inquiry—a continuous search for meaning that generates ever more questions rather than answers. With a remarkable sense of plasticity, it captures in an extraordinary way the transgressive and malleable potential of video and sound as a canvas for expression. Driven by an agitated rhythm of color, contrast, and movement, the film presents a non-linear experiment that feels necessary in these times.
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DIRECTOR(S) STATEMENT :
We are very pleased to receive this recognition. Your festivals inspire us to keep making films that are precisely how we want them. We will update our Candleknife poster and Filmfreeway pages.
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