WINNERS 2024
"In the fascinating film of Armando López Castañeda, a language spoken by the first inhabitants of the land, pronounced from the ancestral life, is converted into a message that reflects the greater struggle of humanity with memory and wisdom. Through impressive images based on his experience in graphic design, the director elaborates a story with an ancient advertisement - 'those who refuse to listen bring only death' - resonates beyond its fictional origins. What's more, the disappearing archaic language itself, whose idea is singular, emerges as a central character, symbolizing not only indigenous knowledge but all the profound human wisdom we risk losing with time and indifference. This voice that speaks to us throughout the continuous movement of the camera that reveals the ruins of a devastated world, becomes a powerful poem that invites us to understand the true implications and critical consequences of turning a deaf ear to the voices of nature, whispers that hold the secrets of survival and harmony with our environment. This masterful work transcends cultural specifics to explore universal themes: how language preserves essential truths and how its loss diminishes all communities. The film is both a warning and an invitation to recognize the eternal wisdom contained in words, whether ancient or modern, real or imagined. With its shocking ending, this cinepoem explores a profound connection between nature and time, serving as a poignant critique of human behavior"
Delluc Avant-Garde Winner
"Sonja Rendtorff's Half Folded Wings soars as a strange and thought-provoking speculative film that wonders about the possibilities of the medium through a premise that explores humanity's tenuous relationship with nature. It is a timeless allegory, a fascinating story in which, in a hypothetical medieval future, alienated humans, faceless, without personality but with presence, cohabit in a garden that is a kind of original paradise, and at the same time, an allegory of non-place, whose perfect setting poses a critical look at control and self-control. Through pristine cinematography with a beautiful use of black and white, and a measured rhythm with highly accomplished sound moments, the film creates a hypnotic meditation on the space between civilization and chaos, between order and wild beauty, where the ritual of the actions, more than the narrative sense, manages to generate unease in the viewer and tension around the concept of power. In this evocative universe that the film constructs, with great authorial control, the uniformed searchers become metaphors for our own fractured relationship with nature, while their journey into uncertainty reflects our collective anxieties about the environmental future. Most striking is Rendtorff's ability to capture the moment when structured reality begins to dissolve, transforming a simple quest narrative into a dreamlike examination of what we lose when we try to tame the untamable"
Epstein Special Mention
" Luis Arroyo's Obrigaggi transforms a simple premise into a hypnotic symphony of repetition and entrapment. It is extremely interesting how the director manages to use the cinematic device with a similarity to a "musical video", transforming it into a beautifully crafted artistic piece, inseminated by an incomplete, fragmented and circular narrative structure. The film's genius lies in its masterful sound design: the music, which plays one of the main roles by integrating with the interior monologue and the rhythmic reiteration of various patterns, pulsates like a heartbeat through the endless loop of the desert, reinforced by almost mantric circles and repetitions, turning the rickety truck into a prison and a percussion instrument. Through precise rhythmic editing and claustrophobic framing, Arroyo creates a fascinating meditation on routine and ritual, where the circular journey of five men becomes a universal metaphor for life's recurring patterns. The score not only accompanies the action: it embodies the soul of its cyclical existence, making us feel both the maddening monotony and the strange comfort to be found in repetition."
Amero Revelación Award
"Leonardo Villa's Aurora transforms a complex sequence shot into a hypnotic exploration of urban consciousness, where São Paulo's Aurora Street becomes simultaneously a theme, metaphor, emanations, presences, and characters. Through his masterful cinematography, reminiscent of video dance, performance art, and performance also of the camera, Villa captures the way the turbulence of the city infiltrates domestic spaces, creating a visual poem about the permeable boundaries between public chaos and private sanctuary. Furthermore, the space of exiting to the street is very powerful as a solution and the suggestive sound work, congruent with the proposal, manages to transmit and leave a strong tension and violence rooted in the memory of the spectator, which resonates with the look towards a dark and threatening street lined with barbed wire. The film's power lies in its ability to transform a simple street view into a surreal dreamscape, where the city's unconscious mind merges with the inner lives of its inhabitants.
Like a fever dream captured on camera, the continuous shot builds a mesmerizing rhythm that reflects the relentless pulse of urban life, suggesting that at the heart of every metropolis, there is a wild, untamed dawn waiting to break through our carefully constructed walls of separation"
Jury's Mention
"In Now & Then: Notes from a Fragmented Life, directors Falkenberg and Cochran, through a personal and autobiographical construction based on scraps, photos and models, weave a tapestry of memory through video poems inspired by Polaroids, in a farcical tone. The use of audiovisual detritus in the fabric of the piece is quite interesting, so its combination of found footage, animation, and cell phone captures fills the film with cinematic resources that captivate with their narrative, rhythm, and diversity of approaches, creating occasionally surprising moments. At times comical, at times serious, melancholic and reflective, it keeps the viewer attentive and curious to know which will be the next Polaroid chosen as the triggering poem for
a story, while weaving the linear plot of the protagonist's life. It's worth noting that some individual segments shine with genuine poetic vision, particularly when they explore themes of aging and redemption, where the presentation of old age—a topic rarely integrated into artistic research—is generous. The directors' ambitious combination of personal documentary and experimental collage demonstrates a technical versatility that reflects a generation of audiovisual research that is emotional, honest, and with full authorial control"
Jury's Mention
FINALISTS 2024
