“This animated film left us speechless and with tears in our eyes,” say jury members.
The winner of the Motovun Shorts program of Motovun Film festival and thus the candidate for a European Film Award is the short film Ice Merchants by Portuguese director João Gonzalez. The film premiered at Critics’ Week in Cannes this year. It is a story about a father and his son who jump with a parachute from their house on a vertiginous cliff to a village in the valley below to sell ice there every day.
“This animated film left us speechless and with tears in our eyes. It works on many layers, from love and loss to global economy and environmental cataclysm. All these important issues are sculpted incredibly subtly and skillfully, both in narrative and in style. This poetic piece of art deserves to become part of a permanent exhibition in every museum of modern art,“ explained the jury members (Jing Hasse from Swedish Film Institute, Austrian filmmaker Mo Harawe and Croatian filmmaker Andrej Korovljev).
“On behalf of the whole film crew, I thank you from my heart. It was my graduation film and I worked on it with the best team. This is why the award belongs to all of us, for there would be no film without them,” said the young Portuguese filmmaker in his message to Motovun Film Festival.
João Gonzalez combines his music and animation gifts in his films. His short films Nestor and The Voyager have been shown at 130 festivals.
In addition, the crew of the film will also receive a EUR1,000 cash award. We wish them best of luck!
