20e Festival international Signes de Nuit - Paris / 1-10 octobre 2022
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THE STUDENT JURY MEMBERS
Anindya Chatterjee (India)
Lida Frundina (Ukraine)
Maria Teresa Mendonça (Portugal)
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| To Discharge |
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| Amanda Adele Björk |
| Sweden / 2022 / 0:29:50 |
A couple, Ingrid and August, can’t communicate with each other any longer. They decide to go to an alternative therapy camp to save their relationship. While there they devote themselves to primal play, laughter therapy and sessions with a self-appointed therapist. But everything doesn’t go as they expected.
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Jury Declaration:
This film is beautiful in all the senses. It is bold, comic and tragic, it is creative, it is innovative. The characters are very well developed and the story makes us be totally hooked, since the first shot until the end. The cinematography of the film is also excellent and the generic is really well done.
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SIGNS AWARD
The Signs Award honors films, which treat an important subject in an original and convincing way
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| Sugar People |
| Shekerni luge |
| Suzana Dinevsk |
| Macedonia / 2021 / 0:24:30 |
Can one accidental meeting at a street light cause several worlds to collide? Elena, a young HIV positive woman meets Fillip, a young man at an intersection in the city of Skopje. Their strong feelings for each other makes their limited time together longing for more and leads to revealing more about themselves than they normally would, since both believe they will never see one another again.
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Jury Declaration:
This film has a very good image quality, it is innovative and the actors are really good. Both the story and the dialogues are really interesting and deep.
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NIGHT AWARD
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 Dark Moment of Faith |
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| Zornitsa Dimitrova |
| Germany / 2021 / 0:17:00 |
The young Vicky is struggling for money. Her mother has just died and her only way to raise money for the funeral is by selling her body. Everything seems very hopeless to her, until she meets Vasco.
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Jury Declaration:
This film deals with a hard-hitting subject like flesh trade. The gritty narrative style captures well the camouflaging relationships. With every scene and the performances of the principal characters, the dark reality becomes alive on screen. It has the power to engage the viewers and make them contemplate.
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| Phlegm |
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| Jan-David Bolt |
| Switzerland / 2021 / 0:07:00 |
Oscar's late. In the surrounding skyscrapers hands are shaken and contracts are signed. That's the last thing he needs right now. Where do these damned snails come from?
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Jury Declaration:
This concept is really creative and the criticism it portrays is very interesting. The cinematography of the film is excellent. But even though on the closing credits it is said that there was no animal har. We really hope the snails were not killed for the movie!
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EDWARD SNOWDEN AWARD
The Edward Snowden Award honors films, which offer sensitive (mostly) unknown information, facts and phenomena of eminent importance, for which the festival wishes a wide proliferation in the future.
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| Lonely Cowgirl |
| Ensom Cowgirl |
| Gina Kippenbroeck |
| Denmark / 2021 / 0:19:10 |
Alone in her apartment, Liv is counting the days until she is reunited with the woman she loves. Accompanied by her audio-tapes, she thinks back on her relationship as the solitude slowly begins to test her mental strength.
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Jury Declaration:
The composition (artistic and technic) of the shots are very pretty. The idea behind the storytelling is really beautiful and creative. I think that this film is very pure, vulnerable and subtle. It addresses a problematic that is common to all of us: love, loss, loneliness, nostalgia, suffering. It was important to talk about these things through a LGBTQIA+ couple.
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| See You Garbage! |
| Au plaisir les ordures! |
| Romain Dumont |
| Canada, Quebec / 2021 / 0:16:54 |
This drama takes the form of a revolutionary tale where a class of politicians full of contempt are confronted to the sudden awareness of its people.
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Jury Declaration:
This film has a strong political message, denouncing the hypocrisy of the world around us, in a very clever way. Everything is in the little details (for example, the politicians serving their dishes before their guests) and the end is really unexpected, in a satirical way. Both the storytelling and the filmmaking are very successful. I thought that the generic was really well built and I really loved the concept of incorporating the cameras of the house’s divisions in the film.
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| Her Face |
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| Caroline Du Potet, Eric Du Potet |
| France / 2021 / 0:23:40 |
Claire and Simon are expecting. How do they cope with the situation, when both of them are nonsighted ?
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Jury Declaration:
This film is very original and its subject is very relevant and usually not portrayed in Cinema. The shots are very aesthetic and the story is told in a way that makes us feel immersed in the skin of the main character. We feel her pain and even though everything is falling apart, she still keeps moving, she still has hope.
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MENTION FOR THE SIGNS AWARD
The Signs Award honors films, which treat an important subject in an original and convincing way
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| Little Bear |
| Ourse |
| Nicolas Birkenstock |
| France / 2020 / 0:27:00 |
Little Bear is a sleepwalker and she tends to run away at night. Her mother is trying to cure her. But Little Bear doesn’t want to, she wants to understand where does her sleep takes her. Doesn’t she want to run away from herself.
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Jury Declaration:
The storytelling of this film is very interesting and creative. The shots are also very cinematographic and the VFX effects are really well done..
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MENTION FOR THE SIGNS AWARD
The Signs Award honors films, which treat an important subject in an original and convincing way
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| Jmar |
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| Samy Sidali |
| France, Morocco / 2021 / 0:20:00 |
On the beach of Mohammedia, a small coastal town in Morocco, Khaled sells horse rides to passers-by. He hangs out with his friends, they are in their twenties and fantasize about a sexuality that is forbidden tothem.
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Jury Declaration:
This film has a lot of beautiful landscapes, specially the shot of the liberation moment at sea. It portrays an important story about sexuality in a religion where there is not a lot of freedom, regarding that subject. In addition, the shot of the TV on Khaled’s eyes was really well done. The actor that played Khaled was a very good actor.
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MENTION FOR THE NIGHT AWARD
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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| Eating the Silence |
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| Joël Jent, Ali Al-Fatlawi |
| Switzerland / 2021 / 0:23:44 |
Rolf, a hemiplegic, spends his days dozing on a sofa bed in his dusty apartment. On TV, he learns of a deadly pandemic sweeping around the globe. While the world around him falls apart, he bears witness to it on his screen with relish. When his nurse fails to visit him, Rolf realizes that his survival is anything but certain.
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Jury Declaration:
We really like the camera movements of this film. The shots are very soft and beautiful. The idea of the sculpture is very original. But the story and its end is very heavy, but important to address!
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MENTION FOR THE NIGHT AWARD
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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| The Black Pelicans |
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| Luli Bitri |
| Albania / 2022 / 0:19:00 |
An unexpected pregnancy causes tensions into a family, as they fear the arrival of another autistic child.
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Jury Declaration:
We really liked the analogue overall look of the film. Even though the story behind the couple is not very clear, the rest of the story is very well-built and shocking. The shocking ending really makes you speechless.
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MENTION FOR THE JURY AWARD
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| Retrace |
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| Trang Thi Ha Tran |
| Viet Nam / 2021 / 0:29:52 |
Amidst the flood season, a city boy follows his father to a regressive mountain village in Que Phong, Nghe An to attend his grandfather's funeral. As immigrants, the boy's family must invite the shaman and relatives from the plains to organize a funeral in line with their homeland's custom. Although shy away from everybody, the boy quickly feels connected to the animals here and is especially attracted to the strange appearance of termites in the house. Since the people from below are unable to attend the funeral due to the weather, the adults in the family reluctantly choose to arrange the funeral according to the customs of local ethnic minorities. After the unfamiliar burial procedures, the family feels tired and lost. Following the termites, Fuzzy travels through the different spaces of dream and reality to reunite the living and the dead at the yin yang border.
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Jury Declaration:
This film starts perfectly with a wonderful opening shot. The cinematography is perfect and the edition effects of the fire over the black and white landscapes is really well done. There are some beautiful citations throughout the duration of the film which is, overall, poetic, deep and of a magnificent purity. Both the storytelling and the visual components are very good.
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