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The 16th International Festival
Signes de Nuit
Lisbon

16. Festival Internacional
Signos Da Noite

January 4 - 7, 2019

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AWARD CELEBRATION

The Awards of the Section Documentary Film


January 2019
Lisbon / Portugal

 

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Main Award :

Mon amour, mon ami
Adriano Valerio

  
Inkotanyi

Mon amour, mon ami
Adriano Valerio

Italy, France
2017 | 0:16:00

Daniela and Fouad live in Gubbio, but they both come from by the sea: she's from Bari; he's from Casablanca. Their bodies have suffered hardship and alcoholism. They met by chance and a deep, healing friendship was born. Now that Fouad needs a permit to remain, marriage seems to be the easiest solution. But can you enter into a sham marriage with someone who really loves you?
 
   

Jury Statement :
“Mon amour, mon ami” receives the main award for documentary film for its tenderness, kindness and genuinely. Adriano Valerio took the time to know Daniela and Fouad and that pays off in the way they open themselves to the camera and to the world.

 

 

Special Mention :

Tungrus
Rusti Chandna
  

Tungrus

Tungrus
Rusti Chandna

India
2017 | 0:14:0 0

A tragi-comical drama, whose protagonist is no other than a young cock, unfolds in a Mumbai apartment just like thousands of others. Grabbed by an eccentric patriarch to serve as a distraction for the family cat, the chick survived, grew up and now imposes his troublesome presence on everyone, tyrannising the entire household. From this unexpected situation, Rishi Chandna creates a hilarious urban fable, which implicitly reveals the life of an Indian middle-class family. Like in a group therapy exercise, everyone shares their point of view, through bold editing that is able to create suspense in a few shots. Will the feisty fowl end up in the pot? Can one escape one’s condition and climb the social ladder, peck by peck? A study of human and animal mores in today’s India lies behind the small domestic theatre of the absurd.

 

 

PORTUGAL PREMIERE

 

Jury Statement :
The Jury decided to highlight the film "Tungrus" for showing us the complexity of relationships through the absurd situation of a family that adopts a rooster as a pet. The confusion and chaos that the animal causes is simultaneously what the family hates and loves about it.

 

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Signs Award :

Combat Obscura
Miles Lagoze


The Signs Award for Documentary honors films, which express in a surprising way sensitive and perturbing aspects of reality.



Combat Obscura w

Combat Obscura
Miles Lagoze

USA
2018 | 1:08:00

You've seen war documentaries from civilian journalists, reporters, and independent filmmakers. Now, for the first time, is a look at war from inside the military, filmed exclusively by Marine combat cameramen. For years, Miles Lagoze served in Afghanistan as a Combat Camera, shooting footage and editing videos for Marine Corps recruiting purposes. In this devastating film, Lagoze assembles his own footage and that of his fellow combat cameramen into a never-before-seen look at the daily life of Marines from the ultimate insider's point of view. More than a mere compilation of violence, the edit ingeniously repurposes the original footage to reveal the intensity and paradoxes of war in an age of ubiquitous cameras, when all soldiers can record themselves with helmet-cams and cellphones. Combat Obscura revels in the chasm separating civilian from military life and questions the psychological toll war exacts on all that it touches.
PORTUGAL PREMIERE
   

Jury Statement :
The Signs Award for Documentary goes to "Combat Obscura", a cinema work, that functions as a time capsule. Within it, we can delve into what it relentlessly preserves and reveals: the everyday life of the dominant faction in a war conflict of the early twenty-first century.

 

 
Special Mention
for the Signs Award :

Doctor Co
Lysander Wiering
  
Doctor Co

Doctor Co
Lysander Wiering

Netherlands
2017| 0:24:00

Eighty-year old Doctor Co cycles all over Amsterdam to visit refugees in run-down garages and empty buildings. They stay here illegally and aren't eligible for professional medical care. Doctor Co tends to them and listens to their stories. They live in wretched circumstances; alcohol abuse and conflicts among themselves are regular occurrences. What motivates the old doctor to stick up for them unconditionally?

 

PORTUGAL PREMIERE

 

Jury Statement :
The jury highlights this film for its crude and honest look on the circumstances of the refugees in Amsterdam. And the dedication of a man whose unconditional support for them.

Director Statement :
I started filming with Doctor Co after I've met him in a shelter for the homeless. Here I was making a previous documentary and Co had an open office hour once a week, where the visitors of the shelter could consult him. He and his work fascinated me and therefor I asked to film him. His humble response was: "I don't think it will be interesting, I'm not such a highlight." I pushed on and a week later I met him in an old, dark garage in the outskirts of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Here he introduced me to the 200 (young) men that were living here, as they had nowhere else to go. Doctor Co, was their doctor and guide in the dark. I spent many hours in to getting to know the residents of the garage. we drunk tea, talked about football and listened to music. I got to know them and they got to know me. That's when I started filming. Doctor Co and his work remained my focus point. My central question was: what drives/motivates him to do what he does? There was no clear answer to this. But during the many hours that I spent along his side, looking and filming over his shoulder I understood: Doctor Co doesn't ask himself the question 'why should he help someone'; he just gets on his bike and goes towards where they need him. To help someone doesn't require a motivation. Lysander Wiering

 

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Night Award :

The Way
Olesya Shigina, Veronica Ponomarev

The Night Award for Documentary honors films, which represent reality in an ambivalent and enigmatic way, avoiding stereotypes of representation and simple conclusions.


The Way

The Way
Olesya Shigina, Veronica Ponomarev

Federation Russia
2017 | 1:27:00

0 The Trans-Siberian Railway, boundless Russia … Two friends set off to find answers to simple and complicated questions talking to different people. They stay overnight with strangers and their families, visit monasteries, strike up conversations with fellow travelers on the train. What makes Russia tick? What are the main concerns of common people? How do dwellers of this huge country perceive its past and present? What or who will save Russia? What is the secret of the Russian soul? If you follow your heart and trust your hunches, you won't doubt the answer... It's a long way from Moscow to Russky Island... Will you ever hit a boundary? A large panorama of Russian Peple today, their hopes and fears, theis disappointments and loves...

 

 

WORLD PREMIERE

 

Jury Statement :
"The Way" receives the Night Award for its effort to avoid stylisation and ideological views, offering the viewer the freedom to diagnose traces of a people's portrait in a time and a country that seems inconsistent concerning their sense of identity.

Director Statement :
"The Way" receives the Night Award for its effort to avoid stylisation and ideological views, offering the viewer the freedom to diagnose traces of a people's portrait in a time and a country that seems inconsistent concerning their sense of identity.

 

 
Special Mention
for the Night Award :

A Life from Death
Tuuli Teelahti
  
EBC

A Life from Death
Tuuli Teelahti

Finland
2016 | 0:20:00

Sound seeps away from the piano, breath from life, focus from the film. A mimesis of dying, stylised, but tangible. Death from the perspective of the attending carers: changing the sheets, holding back tears, having a coffee break, holding fading hands, lighting candles. And once more: changing the sheets, holding back tears, the coffee … life cycles.
PORTUGAL PREMIERE
   

Jury Statement :
"A Life from Death" presents us with the inevitability of death, in a grave and mesmerising atmosphere. Faced with the evidence of routine, the fleetingness of time invites us to reflect on our individual existence as a ephemeral phenomenon.

 


 

Festival international SIGNES DE NUIT - 18, rue Budé 75004 Paris - France - Tel : +33 (0) 1 40 46 92 25 - +33 (0) 6 84 40 84 38 - cood.int@signesdenuit.com