This year’s diverse Cinehill programs attracted a wealth of visitors, and luckily, our film voting system helped us gauge which titles resonated with you the most.
The highest audience score went to the drama The Sea by Israeli director Shai Carmeli-Pollak – a film that, despite a convincing victory at the Israeli Ophir Awards, provoked the fury of the Israeli government for its critical stance towards the Israeli military and the occupation of Palestine.
The Sea tells a sobering story of everyday life in a conflict zone through the innocent eyes of 12-year-old Palestinian boy Khaled. After Israeli soldiers at a border crossing separate him from his classmates on a trip to the seaside, he sets off alone on a dangerous journey to the coast. On a scale of 1 to 5, the film earned the impressive score of 4.605.
Also in the Main Competition, the second highest-scoring title was the sardonic Slovenian dramedy Stealing Land by Žiga Virc, in which a quarrel between two children over the eponymous children’s game prompts their parents into a seemingly convivial gathering.
The evening then escalates into a political argument full of absurd conflicts and uncomfortable admissions. This ironic portrait of a society that can no longer tell the difference between play, parenting, and real-life relationships earned a score of 4.562.
Interestingly, our third highest-rated film comes from Greenland – and it is a documentary. The award-winning Sumé: The Sound of a Revolution by Inuk Silis Høegh follows the progressive rock group Sumé, whose music became the soundtrack of Greenland’s movement for freedom, identity, and emancipation in the 1970s. Our audiences awarded it an impressive 4.554.
Fourth place went to our opening night film, the comedy The Altar Boys by Polish director Piotr Domalewski. The film’s child’s-eye view draws us into a lucid critique of the Church, as a group of idealistic altar boys steal church funds to distribute them justly – only to find that this is far more complicated than anticipated. Garnering outstanding audience reactions since the very first screening, the film earned an excellent 4.527.
Finally, our fifth most popular title according to the sentiment of the audience only confirms that the Maverick Award went to the right person: Edward Berger’s acclaimed Conclave, a highly stylised drama of Vatican intrigue, earned a score of 4.524.
