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The 14th International Festival
Signes de Nuit
Paris
November 24 - December 4, 2016
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AWARD CELEBRATION
Student Jury
Sunday, December 4, 2016 / 6 pm
Maison du Portugal
André de Gouveia
Cité internationale
universitaire de Paris
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Short Film Competition
Main Award
Timecode
Juanjo Giminez |
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Timecode
Juanjo Giminez
Spain
2015 | 0:15:00 Luna and Diego are the parking lot security guards. Diego does the night shift, and Luna works by day.
Luna et Diego sont les agents de sécurité et de gardiennage du parking. Diego effectue le service de nuit, alors que Luna travaille en journée.
Trailer :
https://youtu.be/EtfI81Edspo
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Student Jury Statement :
Meilleur film pour son scénario audacieux et sympathique où les
interactions entre les personnages se font par la danse, ainsi que sa
mise en scène.
Best movie for its audacious and nice screenplay where the characters
interact with each other by dancing, and the way it is filmed.
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Director Statement : Queridos amigos del festival Signes de nuit, muchas gracias por el
premio del Jurado de estudiantes.
Me encanta hacer películas sobre cosas que no conozco, y es muy
estimulante que me den un premio a causa de la danza, porque
sinceramente, yo no sé bailar...
Espero poder participar en próximas ediciones de vuestro festival con
nuevos films sobre temas de los que no tengo ni idea.
Muchas gracias otra vez y un saludo desde Barcelona!
Dear friends of the Signes de Nuit Festival, thank you very much for
this student jury award!
I love making films about subjects that I don’t know, and it is very
stimulating to receive a prize for a dance work, because honestly, I
do not know how to dance ...
I hope to be able to participate in next editions of your festival,
making new films about things that I don’t know much about...
Thank you very much again and greetings from Barcelona!
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Short Film Competition
Special Mention
Invocation to Sleep
Ewa Wikiel |
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Invocation to Sleep (Invocation au sommeil)
Ewa Wikiel
Germany
2015 | 0:13:00
A night in a small polish village. Eight year old Kornel can't fall asleep. For the first time in his life he's confronted with a death in his family. At dawn he leaves the house to see if the world outside still exists and where the line between life and death is.
Une nuit dans un petit village polonais. Kornel, huit ans ne parvient pas à trouver le sommeil. Pour la première fois dans sa vie, il est confronté à un décès dans sa famille. À l'aube, il quitte la maison pour voir si le monde extérieur existe encore, et où est la ligne entre la vie et la mort.
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Student Jury Statement :
Un film magnifique sur la vie et la mort. Le point de vue de l'enfant
nous permet de voir son évolution. Les paysages sont très beaux aussi.
A beautiful movie about life and death. The point of view of the
child allows us to see his evolution. The landscapes scenes are
beautiful as well.
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Director Statement :
When it comes down to the comment: I am thankful for the words said by
jury about ,,Invocation to sleep'',
As we shot the film in Poland,we would never think it will be
confronted with the viewers in Paris.
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Short Film Competition
Signs Award
Behemoth - or the Game of God
Lemohang Jeremih Mosese |
The Signs Award is attributed to films treating an important subject
in an original, convincing and surprising way. |
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Behemoth - or the Game of God Behemoth - ou le jeu de Dieu
Lemohang Jeremih Mosese
Lesotho, Germany
2015 | 00:13:00
An itinerant preacher proclaims to people that their god is in the very coffin he is dragging along.
Un prédicateur itinérant proclame aux gens que leur dieu se trouve dans le cercueil qu'il traîne.
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Student Jury Statement :
Film dont les sujets "polémiques" que sont la religion et l'argent
sont présentés de manière convaincante et originale. La manière dont
le film est filmé est original aussi et en accord à la bande sonore
extravagante.
Movie which subjects as polemics as religion and money are presented
in a convincting and original way. The way its filmed is also very
original and fits perfectly with the odd soundtrack.
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Director Statement :
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Short Film Competition
Night Award
Limbo
Konstantina Kotzamani |
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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Limbo
Konstantina Kotzamani
Greece, France
2016 / 0:30:00
The leopard shall lie down with the goat. The wolves shall live with the lambs. And the young boy will lead them.
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Student Jury Statement :
Un film très esthétique avec de magnifiques paysages. L'histoire très
originale et ambiguë nous plonge dans un univers presque onirique et
énigmatique.
A very esthetic film with wonderful landscapes. The story very
originale and ambiguous drives us into a living dream and an enigmatic
universe.
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Short Film Competition
Special Mention for the Night Award
Woman and her Car
Elle pis son char
Loïc Darses |
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Woman and her Car
Elle pis son char
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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Student Jury Statement :
Un film témoignage qui traite d'un sujet sensible et polémique. Le
mélange de vidéos familiales puis des plans de paysages tournés 20 ans
après par le fils donne au film un aspect d'hommage réussi.
A testimony film which treat a sensitive and polemic subject. The mix
between the family videos and the landscpes scenes filmed 20 years
after by the son gives to the film its memorial aspect very well done.
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Short Film Competition
Edward Snowden Award
Leeches
Sethi Payal |
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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Leeches
Sethi Payal
India
2016 | 0:26:00
In the chaotic old city of Hyderabad, 16-year old Raisa hatches a dangerous & improbable plan to save her younger sister from becoming a one-day bride.
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Student Jury Statement :
Un film qui traite d'un sujet important et sensible mais encore peu
abordé et polémique. Un court - métrage émotionnel. La dernière scène
nous offrant une morale magnifique.
A movie which treat an important and sensitive subject that is still
ignored by most people and polemic. A very emotional shortfilm. The
last scene offers us a beautiful moral.
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Director Statement :
We are honoured to receive this award for our film, which has been two
years in the making. It is wonderful to be acknowledged for the
comprehensive research that formed the basis of this narrative, which
is set against the practice of temporary marriage in extremely
underprivileged Muslim communities in Hyderabad.
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Cinema in Transgression Competition
Main Award
Counterlight
Maya Zack
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Counterlight
Maya Zack
Israel
2016 | 0:23:00
A hypnotic journey into the depths of consciousness that follows the traces of poet Paul Celan An archivist listens to extracts from recordings by Celan and resurrects the past in a female alchemy
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Student Jury Statement :
Un film magnifique. Palimpseste où se rejoignent la hantise de l’oubli et les méandres du passé. Il faut s’inscrire dans l’histoire, archiver, recomposer… pour ne pas oublier. Le personnage féminin, touchant, semble égaré dans cet étrange espace vide, séparant les vivants des morts. Elle se découpe comme une ombre chinoise dans un monde de carton et papier, menant une véritable fouille archéologique du passé, afin d’en exhumer les spectres. Rituel de mémoire, étrange cérémonie, méticuleuse mise en scène… Autant d’éléments qui nous ont poussé à positionner ce film, non pas à contre jour (counterlight), mais en pleine lumière !
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Directors Statement: I was very happy and touched to read the attentive and enthusiastic
statement of the jury about Counterlight. I can assure you that also
the fictitious feminine character of the archivist in my film would
have been excited to read those words too and to know that the
palimpsest (the jury's exact expression) - the memory-Golem she was
creating - has come to life in the mind of the jury and the viewers.
It's even more special to get your warm response in Paris, the city
where Paul Celan lived, loved and wrote his seminal poetry of which
"Stretto" (Engfuehrung) appears in the film and which inspired my
journey in the past few years. I thank you deeply for your kind
generous insight and heart. Maya Zack
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Cinema in Transgression Competition
Signs Award
FIRAQ
Kalli Zifou |
The Signs Award honors films, which treat an important subject
in an original and convincing way. |
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FIRAQ
Kalli Zifou
Great Britain
2016 | 0:10:12
A Syrian couple during their final moments together as they cannot both afford to seek for refuge
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Student Jury Statement :
Firaq est un film poignant. L’histoire de ce couple dévoré par le feu, feu de l’amour et coups de feu, nous a tout de suite séduite. Dans ce chaos éclos la beauté. Beauté d’un amour réduit en cendre. Les jeux de lumières, l’esthétisme, le montage génial, évoquant la disparition, et le fort propos, traité avec élégance, ont attiré notre attention.
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Director Statement : We are honoured to have been attributed the SIGNS Award for Cinema in
Transgression in Festival International Signes de Nuit, a festival
that celebrates innovation. As no-budget student filmmakers we are
beyond pleased that our voice was not only heard and appreciated, but
also given that kind of recognition. It is of particular value to us
that Signes de Nuit awarded our film due to its cause: to unite
experimental filmmaking with sociopolitical experience and create new
artistic expression through film. The Firaq team is wholeheartedly
thanking you for including us in your cause and hope more
collaboration is yet to come!
Kalli Zifou, Director/Writer of Firaq
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Cinema in Transgression Competition
Night Award
Topcoat
Inka Rusi
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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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Topcoat
Inka Rusi
Finland
2016 / 0:08:30
The films opens with an elderly woman is in a taxi coming home from a party carrying a bouquet of flowers and a cake box. She begins to listen to a poem by William Blake. She arrives at her house, unaware that she is being watched by someone. The looker is a young man working on his inspiration. Gradually their two worlds begin to merge as the poem works as a bridge. He is working through his obsessions in his art as the woman is reflecting on life. She moves within the realms of the classical world and he as a young maker is working on reworking the classics. The elderly woman is displayed on his wall when she was young wearing the same dress and coat that she is wearing now. As the film unfolds the question about who is the inspiration and who is the muse becomes unclear
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Student Jury Statement :
Images tricotées avec la minutie d’un vers de poésie, esthétique sophistiquée, mise en abîme de l’artificialité du cinéma… Topcoat nous emporte dans un univers poétique baroque et rythmé. Une forêt de symbole aux accents pop dont on aimerait bien ne jamais revenir. Un pays des merveilles dans lequel les personnages repeignent les fleurs et la réalité à leur couleur. Le poème de Blake est ici magnifiquement lu et mit en image.
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Director Statement :
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Cinema in Transgression Competition
Edward Snowden Award
Voices of Finance
Clara Van Gool |
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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Voices of Finance
Clara Van Gool Netherlands
2015 | 0:35:00
Docudrama based on Joris Luyendijk's Banking Blog in The Guardian about the financial heart of London. We follow ten different characters through the financial world in London, whose monologues are embodied through dance. The characters create a chain reaction similar to the competitive, glamorous exhaustive, uncertain and stressful financial world, in which every day could be your last
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Student Jury Statement :
Un film très original, ou s’allient l’art du cinéma et de la danse. Le monologue, efficace et frappant de sincérité, créer un intelligent contraste avec l’étrangeté des chorégraphies. Les corps se tordent de mal-être, se crispent de stress ou expriment leur ras-le-bol. Les corps se confessent plus encore que la voix. La danse devient alors est une démonstration, une accusation, un exutoire. La grâce surgit dans un monde d’avarice et d’hypocrisie. Les arabesques viennent soudain arrondir les façades tranchantes des buildings. Et dans cette course effrénée à l’argent, le personnage final apporte une subtil respiration, qui laisse une forte empreinte dans l’esprit du spectateur.
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Director Statement :
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Documentary Competition
Main Award
The War Show
Obadiah Zytoon et Andreas Dalsgaard
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The War Show
Obadiah Zytoon et Andreas Dalsgaard
Danemark
2016 | 1:34:00
In March 2011, radio host Obaidah Zytoon and her circle of friends join the street protests against President Bashar al-Assad, as the Arab Spring reaches Syria. Knowing their country would be changed forever, this group of artists and activists begin filming their lives and the events around them. But as the regime’s violent response spirals the country into a bloody civil war, their hopes for a better future will be tested by violence, imprisonment and death. Obaidah leaves Damascus and journeys around the country, from her hometown of Zabadani, to the centre of the rebellion in Homs, and to northern Syria where she witnesses the rise of extremism. A deeply personal road movie, the film captures the fate of Syria through the intimate lens of a small circle of friends.
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Student Jury Statement :
We decided to give the Main Award to "The War Show" because it’s the
film that we love the most.
Showing all the violence in the images but on the same time a young
generation full of hope and courage. These Syrian song people seem
without fear. "The War Show " makes us believe in this youth that will
never surrender, it’s makes us dream about a futur.
Nous avons décidé de remettre le prix principal au fil « The War show
» car c’est le film qui nous a le plus marqué. A la fois par la
violence de ses propos mais surtout par la jeunesse, l’espoir et le
courage de ces jeunes Syriens qui semblent sans peurs. « The War show
» nous donne envie de croire en cette jeunesse qui ne renoncera jamais
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Director Statement :
On behalf of the directors and the entire team I would like to thank
the jury for having chosen The War Show for the Main Award. For us it
is so important to create awareness about the lack of protection of
human rights in Syrian jails of the detainees and disappeared, which
this prize will help us to continue the work of. Also to create an
understanding amongst the western audiences as to how the Syrian
revolution came to a proxy war, which has now been undergoing for 5
years.
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Documentary Competition
Signs Award
Brothers
Bracia
Wojciech Staron |
The Signs Award honors films, which treat an important subject o in an original, convincing and surprising way. |
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Brothers
Bracia
Wojciech Staron
Poland
2015 | 1:11:00
Two old Polish brothers come back to their homeland after having been deported to Siberia. The first one is an artist, the other a pragmatic engineer: despite their differences they love and support each other, and together they face the passage of time and the hardships of life. To tell their story, Wojciech Staron paid recurring visits to the two brothers and took plenty of time to become a part of their daily lives. He captured the passing of time in the old men’s lives and reveals the deep bound that unites them.
Trailer :
https://vimeo.com/156541463
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Student Jury Statement :
We would like to give the signes award to Wojciech Staron’s movie
because it’s a very beautiful film about the old age and love. Without
ever being tearful, "Brother"s shows us what it’s like to grow old
with a brother in good and bad times. It is a very poetic film, at the
same time light, funny and moving.
Nous souhaitons remettre le Signes Award au film de Wojciech Staron
car c’est un très beau film sur la vieillesse et l’amour. Sans jamais
verser dans le larmoyant, « Brothers » donne à voir ce que c’est de
vieillir avec un frère, dans les bons et les mauvais jours. Le film
est très poétique, tout en étant à la fois léger et drôle.
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Director Statement :
I love students awards :)
I’m so happy that young people found the story about two old brothers
important and moving! |
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Documentary Competition
Night Award
Like Dew in the Sun
Peter Entell
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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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Like Dew in the Sun
Peter Entell
Switzerland
2016 / 1:48:00
A century ago, the grandparents of film director Peter Entell had to flee Ukraine, a land torn apart by war and massacres. One hundred years later, Entell faces the same destructive nationalism. People continue to kill in the name of the mother country, flag, culture, religion ... The memory of the atrocities suffered by the Jews, the Tatar Muslims of Crimea, and the Orthodox population, is transmitted from generationto generation, and with it the poison of hatred. Crossing checkpoints, Peter Entell takes us from the loyalist Ukrainians to the pro-Russian separatists. The purpose is not to show who is right or wrong – humanity itself is defeated. In the midst of this senseless violence, Like Dew in the Sun transcends cultural, religious and national differences to uncover the deeper bonds that unite us all.
Trailer :
https://vimeo.com/160079424
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Student Jury Statement :
Like dew in the sun" is a film about legacy and war. Sometime very
hard to look it stays always neutral, showing both parts of the
Ukrainian conflict. Because it makes us know, in a moving way, people
who seems never to have known the peace, we want to attribute the
Night Award to this work.
Like dew in the sun » est un film sur l’héritage et sur la guerre. Le film, parfois très dur, a su rester neutre et nous montrer les deux parties du conflits en Ukraine. C’est pour cela, et parce qu’il fait connaître de manière émouvante ce peule qui semble n’avoir jamais connu la paix, que nous lui décernons le Night Award. |
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Director Statement :
I wish to thank the Jury for having the strength to watch the
brutality shown in this film and the compassion to empathize with the
people it portrays. We have now entered a very dangerous moment in
history, the Age of Trump -- one characterized by anger and hatred,
suspicion and fear, racism and an attitude of "us" versus "them" --
Like Dew in the Sun is an appeal for tolerance and understanding.
Though the film is anchored in the history of Ukraine, it speaks to
the situation in so many countries today.
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Documentary Competition
Edward Snowden Award
El Espiritu del bosque
Monique Muntinge |
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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El Espiritu del bosque
Monique Munting
Belgium, Cameroun
2015 / 0:52:00
A poetic & political documentary In less than a hundred years, half of the world's tropical forests have been destroyed. As a consequence, all over the world forest peoples are threatened and endangered. Among them the Baka of Central Africa, driven from their ancestral territory by the advance of logging activities and the establishment of protected areas, claim their right to live in peace in their natural environment, their “source of life”, as they say. Despite their specific situation, the issues raised by the Baka are universal and essential and particularly relevant in the present.
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Student Jury Statement :
"El espíritu del bosque" is the film which we want to attribute the
Edward Snowden Award. It deals with phenomenas which seems important
to us. The film is sometime funny and always amazing. We would like to
see more often this kind of discourse, at the same time alarming and
optimistic, not deprived of happiness.
El Espiritu del bosque » est le film à qui nous avons souhaité
remette l’Edward Snowden Award. Il traite de phénomènes qui nous
semblent important de relever. De plus, le film est parfois drôle et
toujours étonnant. Nous aimerions entendre et voir plus souvent ce
genre de discours, à la fois alarmant et optimiste, pas dénué
d’espoir.
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