After a week of tirelessly viewing the titles in the official competitions – whose themes ranged from the hypocritical bureaucratisation of war and the uncertainties faced by millennials in wealthy countries, to the importance of chosen families, maturity, and forgiveness – Cinehill juries carefully selected this year’s award recipients. The winning titles bear witness to a clear preference for formally and narratively layered treatments of difficult subjects, and for the intelligent weaving of politics into stories drawn from intimate everyday life.
The Main Competition jury consisted of award-winning Palestinian film producer Baher Agbariya, the driving force behind the drama The Sea; Serbian producer Snežana van Houwelingen; Montenegrin director Marija Perović; and Igor Šeregi, the Croatian director of this year’s record-breaking hit The Wedding.
They awarded the Cinehill Propeller for best film in the Main Competition to the intimate dramedy Flies by Mexican director Fernando Eimbcke. The jury cited Eimbcke’s “exceptional cinematic vision, combining simplicity, boldness, and profound humanity” which transforms a story about the unexpected friendship between the embittered, solitary Olga and the nine-year-old son of her lodger into “a deeply universal reflection on loneliness, connection, compassion, and the acceptance of loss”.
The Special Mention went to the comedy 15 and the half, the directorial debut of well-known Montenegrin actor Milivoje Obradović, with the jury highlighting Obradović’s “witty and intimate portrayal of an actor facing professional, existential, and personal crises”.
The CineCorto jury was comprised of Italian director Aldo Iuliano, Slovenian screenwriter and director Damjan Kozole, and Montenegrin screenwriter Ana Vujadinović Tomić.
After viewing all titles in our CineCorto and CroCorto short film programs, they presented the Corto Award for best international short to L’avant-Poste 21 by Swiss director Camille Surdez. Their statement noted that the film “confronts issues of abortion with courage, sensitivity, and clarity, demanding an open and meaningful discussion”.
The CroCorto Award for best Croatian short film went to Remember That I Carry You by director Ana Predan, whose “minimalist yet precise direction builds filmic poetry around two lonely souls who forge communication through the sea and water”.
Finally, the International Federation of Film Critics, FIPRESCI, was represented at this year’s festival by Italian film critic Gabriele Barrera, Croatian film theorist and critic Petra Belc Krnjaić, and Ukrainian film critic Nataliia Serebrjakova.
Their award went to the drama The Meltdown by Chilean director Manuela Martelli, citing its “subtle yet powerful cinematic language”, that weaves “a chamber-piece story about the multilayered relationship between mothers and daughters, set against a backdrop of both social and individual corruption”.
