On this final day, with the contribution and presence of the jury responsible for selecting the winners, composed of directors Davide Barletti, Nick Jordan, Alessandra Lancellotti, Aurorà Solà, and photographer Michele Lapini, the winning documentaries of the festival awards were announced – Best Documentary, Jury Award and Special Mention, in the feature-length and short film categories – selected from the 18 works in the official selection.
On this final day, with the contribution and presence of the jury responsible for selecting the winners, composed of directors Davide Barletti, Nick Jordan, Alessandra Lancellotti, Aurorà Solà, and photographer Michele Lapini, the winning documentaries of the festival awards were announced – Best Documentary, Jury Award and Special Mention, in the feature-length and short film categories – selected from the 18 works in the official selection.
Awards
In the feature-length film category, the award for Best Documentary, together with a €2,000 contribution, was given to the film Tóc, Giấy và Nước… (Hair, paper, water…) by directors Trương Minh Quý and Nicolas Graux, already awarded the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival, with the following motivation: << For the purity of its cinema, the overwhelming power of its images, and the delicate tenderness of a fluid journey home >>.
The Jury Award was instead given to the national premiere film Retour à Fukushima by Thomas Licata, << for its lucid portrayal of the unsettling everyday reality of a sacrifice zone >>.
There are two Special Mentions, both national premieres: Visi putni skaisti dzied by Krista Burāne, << for the fusion of different forms of visual art, used to tell a drama unfolding between nature and local traditions >>, and Yupumà by Verónica Castro, << for its ability to portray an ancestral community through a dreamlike journey into the forest, shaped by the flow of the river and spiritual chants >>.
In the short film category, the winners are the documentaries How It Begins by Chloé Wasp, a national premiere awarded Best Documentary together with a €700 contribution, << for making the movements of the air visible and revealing humanity’s desire to shape the landscape >>, while the Jury Award was given to Bela Koprena by Žiga Ciber, << for the visual poetry with which it reveals, through oral histories, the scars of industrial modernity >>.
The two Special Mentions, both national premieres, were awarded to the film Mandzarsoa by Germain Le Carpentier, << for its cinematography, which with extraordinary realism reflects the identity of a people quietly regenerating in the aftermath of climate disasters, surviving the oblivion imposed by the paradoxes of contemporary neocolonialism >>, and Jar of Time by Nevena Semova, << for its ability to portray, with extraordinary realism, the lives of those on the margins, celebrating their everyday existence and rural way of life >>.
Finally, the “Borderland Visions” Award, assigned by the film series dedicated to linguistic minorities Evò ce Esù from Martignano (LE), in the Salento Greek area, which from this edition has become an official partner of the TerraLenta Film Fest and took part on 3 July with a conference on cinema of linguistic minorities: telling stories of territories, preserving identities, led by artistic director Pantaleo Rielli. The award was given to Kazakh director Sabi Baibussinov, who attended the festival with the world premiere film Sunset on the Aral, a melancholic introspection on the disappearance of the Aral Sea and its population, considered one of the greatest environmental disasters of the 20th century.
Attendance and Guests
A participatory edition, not only in terms of numbers but also in the interest and quality of the discussions, which consistently took place after each screening in the presence of the director. Throughout the festival – from 1 to 5 July – the directors Sabi Baibussinov, Thomas Licata, Verónica Castro, Žiga Ciber, Nevena Semova, Krista Burāne, Carlos Lòpez-rey, as well as a delegation from the Off Topic Collective, whose film Il grande gioco was in the official selection, were present. These guests were joined by Andrea Marinelli, Mimmo Nardozza and Giorgio Santoriello, who took part in a talk inspired by the film I nemici del popolo, as well as the aforementioned Pantaleo Rielli and body painting artist Lela Perez, who participated in the festival with the exhibition Euterra and a live camouflage art performance inside the castle.
TerraLenta Film Fest is conceived and promoted by APS Fuorisentiero, a Lucanian organization that has been supporting environmental causes and their dissemination for around 10 years. The second edition of the festival was realized with the support of the Municipality of Bella (PZ) and APT Basilicata.
