16/12/2022

Awards Merlinka festival 2022

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Awards in seven categories have been presented on the last night of 14th Merlinka film festival in Belgrade. The categories are: Best short film, Best short documentary, Best Documentary, Best Feature Film, Best Animated Film, Audience award and Special awards.

 

SHORT FILM JURY MEMBERS: Ljubomir Radanov (Journalist), Đorđe Galić (Actor), Namo Safideen (Director and last years winner)

Nominated:

Frida (Director: Aleksandra Odić)
Swan in the center (Director: Iris Chassaigne)
Service (Director: Mikko Makela)
DogFriend (Director: Maissa Lihedheb)
Keep/Delete (Director: Kryzz Gautier)
Jouissance (Director: Sadeq Es-haqi)
Onyx (Director: Aguinaldo Flor)
Bracha (Director: Miykex Triest, Aaron Geva)
I am Leo (Director: Tajo Hurrle)
Too Rough (Director: Sean Lionadh)
She’s The Protagonist (Directo: Sarah Carlot Jaber)
Coming Out with the help of time machine (Director: Naman Gupta)
The Hunt (Directors: Sholeh Zahraei, Kamil Saldun)
Naughty Spot (Director: Jean Costa)

BEST SHORT FILM: The Hunt

Directors: Sholeh Zahraei, Kamil Saldun

Country: Cyprus

Duration: 22 minutes

The sudden discovery of his son’s secret turns Ibrahim’s traditional world upside down. Fraught with emotional conflict, he takes his son Ismail on a fateful trip.  Cyprus’ first fiction tackling homophobia and patriarchy, told from an intersectional, queer, and feminist perspective.

Jury statement:

In the great selection, it was difficult to single out and reward just one film. “The Hunt” is a universal story that each of us can identify with. The director-screenwriter tandem depicts the Turkish part of Cyprus today, but also shows a conservative father anywhere in this part of Europe, who is ready to kill his only son because he decided to love another man.

 

DOCUMENTARY FILM JURY MEMBERS: Dora Jung (Director), Đorđe Mišina (Actor), Milan Aranđelović (Writer)

Nominated:

Maldita. A love song to Sarajevo (Directors: Raúl de la Fuente Calle, Amaia Remirez)
Mon cheri Sovietique (Director: Karol Radziszewski)
Babylon (Directors: Joe Menacho, Frida Cárdenas)
Below the Surface (Director: Tomas Ponsteen)
Friends & Benefits (Director: Maria Katsikadakou)
Herman@s (Director: Hélène Alix Mourrier)
Nidhal (Director: Bassem Ben Brahim)
Close To You (Director: Andrew Norton)
Man Up in Lockdown (Director: Ruicheng Liang)

BEST SHORT Documentary: Maldita. A love song to sarajevo

Director: Raúl de la Fuente Calle, Amaia Remirez

Country: Spain

Duration: 27 minutes

God is love. His homeland is the Earth. His genre? Human. In Maldita, a love song to Sarajevo, Bozo Vreco, the most revolutionary artist of the Balcans sings to life, to overcoming obstacles, and the love story of two cities, Sarajevo and Barcelona. They both knew how to find themselves in difficult times to never day goodbye.
Jury statement:
Through the creation of music and friendship, the film develops a narrative that is continuously imbued with emotional charge. Through music, Božo writes an intimate love letter that he dedicates to Sarajevo, describing his experiences with the city. The way he loves and gives love is embodied by his authentic personality, which is sure of who it is and without hesitation presents itself to the world and above all to its city, which, as he says himself, accepts him, because for him they are “two playful beings in a whirlwind of art”.

ANIMATED FILM JURY: Dragan Jovićević (Screenwriter), Mirela Srebrić (Director and animator), Kristian Ranđelović (Activist)

Nominated:

Black Box (Director: Alana Mango)
This is Katharine (Director: Ida H. Eldoen)
Dating Internet Strangers (Director: Eduardo Wahrhaftig)
Homoperspectives (Director: Stiofan O’Ceallaigh)
Pentola (Director: Leo Černic)
Coming Out Autistic (Director: Steven Fraser)
Two of Us (Director: Viktoria Bera)
The Last Anomay (Director: Hamish Downie)
Thinking of You (Director: Robyn Romain)

BEST Animated Film: Pentola

Director: Leo Černic

Country: Italy

Duration: 7 minutes
It’s not so easy to be a hero. But you, Pentola, you are my superhero.
Jury statemant:
The jury agreed that Pentola is by far the most effective film in this year’s program. First of all, the story crosses different worlds, realities and dreams in a very witty and effective way. Especially interesting is the look at the superhero aspect of the story, which in the era of general popularity of superheroes on the big screen is extremely original and subtly executed. In contrast to the dominant bad art style that pervades most of the films in this year’s program and the production in general, Pentola is performed as a conceptualized drawing, which convincingly combines extraordinary artistry and precise film direction.

DOCUMENTARY FILM JURY MEMBERS: Milan Živanović (Journalist), Isidora Goncić (Director)

Nominated:

Heels Over Wheels (Director: Pau Canivell)
Queer My Friends (Director: Ahhyun Seo)
Travesti Odissey (Director: Nicolas Videla)
Manscaping (Director: Broderich Fox)
Framing Agnes (Director: Chase Joynt)
My name is Andrea (Director: Pratibha Parmar)
LGBT_SLO_1984 (Director: Boris Petkovič)
No Pardon (Director: Aleksandar Reljić)

BEST Documentary: Framing Agnes

Director: Chase Joynt

Country: Canada

Duration: 75 minutes

In 1958, a young trans woman named Agnes entered a study about sex disorders at UCLA to get the gender-affirming care she needed, by any means necessary. Her story was long considered to be exceptional until never-before-seen case files of other patients were found in 2017. Directed by Chase Joynt and featuring an all-star cast of transgender artists and performers, FRAMING AGNES uses re-enactment and genre-blurring storytelling techniques to breathe new life into previously unknown people who redefined gender in the midcentury.

Jury statement:

Framing Agnes is history, a film made from archive footage that was never filmed. But acted in this way are no less believable – one of the actors points out that it is interesting that it is not known in what tone the test subjects uttered the written sentences, but no matter how a word is interpreted, one thing is important – each one was uttered by a trans woman, or some trans man at a time when the world didn’t even know they existed. So limited, spoken in an office and locked in archives, they are still a revolution, because the rebellion starts from the first spoken syllable. We repeat once again – Framing Agnes is history and a very important film.

FEATURE FILM JURY MEMBERS: Dragan Nikolić (Film Editor of Belgrade Youth Center), Milica Tomović (Director)

Nominated:

Eismayer (Director: David Wagner)
Will-o’-the-Wisp (Director: Joao Pedero Rodrigues)
Christina (Director: Nikola Spasić)
Peter Von Kant (Director: Francois Ozon)
The Anotherself (Director: Amir Tavakoli)
Concerned Citizen (Director: Idan Haguel)

BEST Feature film: Christina

Director: Nikola Spasić

Country: Serbia

Duration: 90 minutes

Feature film based on the real person Kristina who plays herself in the film. Kristina is a transgender sex worker who lives with a cat, collects antiques and undergoes non-hypnotic regression sessions. After one session, she accidentally meets Mark and at that moment, platonic love is born between these two people whose random encounters are yet to come. In her search for antiques, Christina increasingly discovers Christianity and accepts it as the only truth. Mark accepts Christina as a woman, but he is upset that she can’t give birth to his children.

Jury statement:

A film that surprised us, a small film that talks about faith, the courage to be who you are, the guilt of being who you are, about morality in an immoral country, about heritage, about identity, about the desire to belong and love.

SPECIAL AWARD SHORT FILM: Boswellia Sacra (Director: Stefan M. Mladenović)

SPECIAL AWARD DOCUMENTARY: No Pardon (Aleksandar Reljić)

SPECIAL AWARD FEATURE FILM: Christina (Nikola Spasić)

AUDEINCE AWARD

Shortlisted:
Tank Fairy (Director: Erich Rettstadt)
Lieferissimo (Director: Lukas März, Kilian Bohnensack)
Breath (Director: Harm van der Sanden)

Audience Award: Lieferissimo

Director: Lukas März, Kilian Bohnensack

Country: Germany

Duration: 8 minutes

Tom heavily falls in love with a delivery boy. To see him again, he orders lots of food, which his roommate has to eat. But everytime someone else is delivering his food. To see the love of his life again, Tom has to find another strategy…

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