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The 14th International Festival
Signes de Nuit
Bangkok
Thaïland
February 27 - March 10, 2016
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****** |
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AWARD CELEBRATION
The 14th International Festival Signes de Nuit
Phuket - Bangkok - Chiang Mai / Taïland
February 27 - March 10, 2016
Documentary Competition
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Main Award:
Symbolic Threats
Matthias Wermke, Lutz Henke, Mischa Leinkauf |
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Symbolic Threats
Matthias Wermke, Lutz Henke, Mischa Leinkauf
Germany
2015 | 0:15:00
Poetry or threat? An act of surrender or perhaps art? These were the theories that New York puzzled over last summer. How can one incident be interpreted in so many ways? By means of press reports, Symbolic Threats allows the public at large to express their extreme disparity of interpretation. Inspired by the heated debate over the two „White American Flags“ that suddenly appeared on the towers of New York City’s iconic Brooklyn Bridge, the film asks what kind of societal scope art has in the present day. What happens when threatened freedom reinstates art with the element of danger? Who or what makes it into a threat? Are we safe in the city? What is next?
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Jury Statement :
Symbolic Threats, with overwhelming hilarity, sharply captured how
over-reaction turned fear of terrorism into a surreally bloated parody
of Dido's White Flag. Through brilliantly edited found footages
covering the Brooklyn Bridge mystery in 2014, the film also presents
how pure satire subtly seeped down to a laughable horror when the art
project was interpreted as threat to national security. |
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Signs Award :
Kings of Nowhere
Betzabé Garcia |
| The Signs Award is attributed to films treating an important subject
in an original, convincing and surprising way. |
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Kings of Nowhere
Betzabé Garcia
Mexico
2015 / 0:23:00
Three families live in a village partially submerged by water in Northwestern Mexico: Pani and Paula do not want to close their tortilleria and spend their spare time rescuing the town from ruins; Miro and his parents dream of leaving but can’t; Yoya and Jaimito live in fear but have everything they need.
Extrait :
https://vimeo.com/111865423 |
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Jury Statement :
The camera follows the life of three families who remained in a
village after the big flood in Northern Mexico. We feel the eerie
silence and quietness, dullness, and the super slowness of the time of
the place where everybody else had abandoned, as if we are there and
live with these people. The film also reminds of the people who had to
live in water for weeks in Thailand in a big flood some years ago, as
well as a place such as Fukushima where people are forced to abandon
their homes except a few who determined to stay to take care of their
elderly family members or animals. |
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Night Award :
Elle pis son char
A Woman and her Car
Loïc Darses |
| 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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A Woman and her Car
Loïc Darses
Canada
2015 | 0:18:00
On 31 December 2003, Lucie Tremblay decided to write to the man who abused her between ages eight and twelve. She is determined to personally deliver the letter. She films her journey to gain closure for the trauma that has haunted her whole life. When her son finds the footage well over a decade later, he decides to turn it into a film: A Woman and her Car. An intimate homage to the courage of an exceptional woman who decided to stand up for herself and a savage condemnation of the bastards who abuse the innocence of others and think they can get away with it.
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Jury Statement :
At the beginning, everything seems to be fine, a family of three (the
mother and her two pretty children) preparing to go for a ride....
As the the story progres, the chagrin, the sadness and a quest for
redemption get revealed, without that the spectator could aware, where
the destination would end. Soon the viewers find themselves in the
middle where "The Hunting Ground" meets "The Look of Silence". The
survivor is seeking a moralistic revenge against a guy who have
sexually violated her, from the age of eight to twelve, and who is now
aged, maybe weary, sexually impotent and worse of all, losing his
memories and in consequence, all senses of guilt in the past. Many
years later, Loic, the woman's young son, whose name is pronounced in
the film, becomes the 'accumulative' collector of his mothers images
and achived footage, recorded on digital camera. These 'memories'
successfully achieves with a pursuit target, not reduced on the
moment, when his mother confronts herself with her rapist, are
presented with manipulating cinematic tension, encouraging a delusion,
or a psychologic illusion known in theater. O the same time, those
innovations turn out to be the beauty of art itself.
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Night Award
Special Mention :
Onder Ons
Guido Hendrikx |
| 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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Onder Ons
Guido Hendrikx
Netherlands
2014 | 0:24:00
Three self- conscious, high-educated paedophiles give a mercilessly insight in their experiences. How do you cope with a sexual orientation that’s considered morbid by society and by yourself?
Extrait:
https://vimeo.com/114554013
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Jury Statement :
A documentary of 3 well-educated pedophiles tell their
feelings/experiences with only their voice over along with poetic
visual experiences . This movie reminds myself of sometimes couldn't
resist staring at some pretty under age boys or girls, staring to
those beauty they got and start to feel really guilty about how
pervert we can be. The film questioned the acceptability, if it rest
just a thought, a imagination. Maybe this imagination is always among
us. |
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Edward Snowden Award:
Our Terrible Country
Mohammad Ali Atassi, Ziad Homsi |
| The Edward Snowden Award honors films, which offer sensible (mostly)
unknown informations, facts and phenomenons of eminent importance, for
which the festival wishes a wide proliferation in the future. |
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Our Terrible Country
Baladna alraheeb
Mohammad Ali Atassi, Ziad Homsi
Syria
2014 | 1:25:00
This road movie portrays the perilous journey of well-known intellectual Yassin al-Haj Saleh and young photographer Ziad Homsi through Syria, at a time when the country edges towards the brink. Yassin (53), who spent 16 years in prison for belonging to the Syrian left, goes underground in 2011 to serve Syria’s popular uprising, while Ziad (24) - occasionally fighting with the rebels - takes photographs in his hometown Douma. In this Damascene suburb – where Yassin and his wife Samira Khalil found shelter - the two men meet and become friends. Together, they embark on an adventurous journey through the desert to al-Haj Saleh’s native town Raqqa in Northeast Syria. Upon their arrival, Raqqa is occupied by the "Islamic State in Iraq and Levant" (ISIS), which also kidnapped two brothers of Yassin. Consequently, the thinker leaves for Istanbul to pursue his writing for the revolution, hoping for a reunion with his wife Samira who remained in Douma. Ziad – abducted by ISIS on his way back – rejoins Yassin after his release, hoping to return home soon. All hopes are shattered when Samira gets abducted jointly with human rights lawyer Razan Zeitouneh. And the film ends while Syria tumbles into a yawning abyss.
Extrait :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkKGxGDBXwQ
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Jury Statement :
In the midst of refugee crisis in Europe and elsewhere, this film is
extremely significant in a sense that it provides us with a deep
insight into the reality of Syria, the condition of the war zone and
escapees as well as the mind of intellectuals and activists. Taken by
a Syrian filmmaker who himself is a victim of this tragic civil war,
the film is a compelling account of the once-jailed leftist
intellectual who had been fighting all his life against the
totalitarian regime but finally decided to leave his home and country.
“Before we had only one enemy, but now we have so many enemies” – the
comment of his and his colleague's in the end of the film,
disillusioned, resonates in the mind of audience, anticipating an ever
harder path for Syria, the Middle East and the world. To the audience
in Thailand, too, this film means much as the situation of
military-led Thailand is such that some intellectuals have to leave
country. |
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Audience Award:
Dream Reel
Sam Barnes |
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Dream Reel
Sam Barnes
Australia
2015 | 0:11:15
Dream Reel is about the impassable yet ambiguous gulf between the world of dreams and the reality experienced in waking life. The short film is an insight into the conscious minds of three ordinary people and their interpretations of the unconscious realms experienced in their dreams. From recurring childhood dreams, nightmares, to dreams that are inherently absurd, Dream Reel explores how dreams can have a hermitically sealed existence of their own, while sometimes they can unearth the deepest parts of the soul.
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