02-08-2015

Winners of the 15th T-Mobile New Horizons Film Festival Announced

    Winners of the 15th T-Mobile New Horizons Film Festival Announced La obra del siglo

    The official awards ceremony of the 15th T-Mobile New Horizons Film Festival took place at the New Horizons Cinema in Wrocław, Poland. The 2015 edition of the festival consisted of five competitions: the New Horizons International Competition, Films on Art International Competition, Polish Short Film Competition, European Short Film Competition and the Zoom Competition.

    12 films were shown in the New Horizons International Competition. A Jury composed of Anna Sasnal, Reha Erdem, Khavn De La Cruz, Noaz Deshe, Diane Henderson awarded the €20,000 Grand Prize the film Lucifer (Belgium 2014) directed by Gust Van den Berghe.

    Jury: God is a circle. You love. You betray. You disappear. Then life begins with this, this broken circle. You dance. You trip. You see everything. You don't see everything. While the world is a nuclear plant waiting to explode. While family members burn each other to death. While life goes on as a single letter. This film is the circle in your eyes. I want to see you but you are not here.

    For its innovative syncopation in this familiar dance of faith and fakery, love and betrayal, hope and pessimism. For being Mexican, for being Belgian, for going beyond its being, for being itself. For its lush yet grounded mythification and mystification of what is real, what is not, and the great in-between.

    The Project of the Century (La obra del siglo, Argentina, Cuba, Switzerland, Germany 2015) by Carlos M. Quintela received a special mention.

     Film critics from the International Federation of Film Critics awarded the prestigious FIPRESCI prize. This year's winner is Miguel Gomes for his trilogy Arabian Nights (As Mil e uma Noites, Portugal, France, Germany, Switzerland 2015). The FIPRESCI Jury consisted of Rebecca Harkins-Cross, Demetrios Matheou and Piotr Kletowski.

    Jury: For confronting a contemporary social crisis through storytelling that is at once imaginative, playful and challenging, elevating everyday lives to the level of myth.

    Audience Award went to Goodnight Mommy (Ich seh, Ich seh, Austria 2014) directed by Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz.

    In the Films On Art International Competition the Jury consisting of Florian Habicht, Zuzanna Solakiewicz, Samara Chadwick, Oskar Alegria, Pip Chodorov awarded the €10,000 prize to the film Twenty Eight Nights and a Poem (Lebanon 2015) directed by Akram Zaatari.

    Jury: A film searching for its own language. Most films in this section are about an artform, but this film is an artwork in itself. A meditative, interactive, playful ethnography that transcends its own subject, again and again. Its honesty, imperfection, and imagination inspired us to rethink our own ways of creating images. We give the award to Twenty Eight Nights and a Poem by Akram Zaatari.

    In the Polish Short Film Competition, sponsored by the festival's main partner, T-Mobile Polska, the first prize went to the film LOVE, LOVE(Poland 2014) by Grzegorz Zariczny. The second prize went to Martin Rath for his film La etiuda (Poland 2014), while the third prize to Bartosz Kędzierski for Woolen Cogwheels (2014). Object (Poland 2015) by Paulina Skibińska received a special mention. The winners were selected by an international Jury consisting of Miguel Llanso, Alissa Simon and Edyta Janczak-Hiriart.

    The winner of the European Short Film Competition is the film Moon Blink (Austria, Germany 2015) by Rainer Kohlberger. In addition, the film's director received the London Film Academy Award - a special prize consisting of a scholarship to the prestigious school. The second prize went to the film All That Is Solid (France, Ghana 2014) directed by Louis Henderson, and the third prize winner is Ben Rivers Things(UK 2014). Jury members were Pamela Cohn, Jakub Woynarowski and Julian Ross.

    In the Zoom Competition for filmmakers and visual artists from Wrocław and Lower Silesia the first prize went to The Queen of Silence(Poland, Germany 2014) by Agnieszka Zwiefka. The prize for the best video clip went to The Drift by Marcin Ożóg. The special prize provided by Wrocław, European Capital of Culture 2016 whereas the possibility of cooperation with Audiovisual Technology Center went to Aleksandra Terpińska for America (Poland 2014). The winners were selected by Jury: Katarzyna Boratyn, Filip Syczyński and Paweł Kloc.

    Last modified on 04-08-2015