The Jury’s Comment: Within short 15 minutes, an entire world of culture and characters opens is revealed. Understanding the world of the characters is fascinating, and the cinematic aspects make them more accurate. Siva the protagonist, is portrayed in an internal struggle for her female freedom and the camera succeeds to delicately, intelligently and aesthetically portray the chariots of the internal conflict when drawing the characters around her. The dialogues are well constructed and the result is a short and exciting film that manages to express a lot of power even between the lines.
Written & Directed By: Donna Hawa (The Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film And Television School).
The Jury’s Comment: The actors of “See You ‘Round the Block”, in the most virtuoso way, manage to create body gestures, honest conversation, and alter the plethora of feelings that rise through the loaded dialogue. The meeting that occurs between the couple raises thoughts about Samuel Beckett and the strange abyss that lovers find themselves in. Beyond the convincing acting techniques, the actors’ mindfulness is quite noticeable as the driving force of the inner conflicts. The authentic result impresses and sparks hope in the viewer
Actor: Avi Sarussi and Omer Perelman Striks, Written & Directed by: Daniel Gat (The Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel Aviv University).
The Jury’s Comment: With full restraint and precise thought, the editing work in “Aunt Dina” succeeds in explain in an artistical way the cinematic story and helps us dive deeper into the dark secret of the grieving family. The precision of the editing, contributes to the reorganization of the script and the photography, connects and clarifies the gaps of time, and succeeds in expressing the dark parts in a delicate cutting work (which takes place under the cover of the night), in a car driving, in the small family apartment and in the beating hearts of the characters.
Editor: Zohar Sela, Written & Directed by: Benyamin Esticangie (Minshar School Of Art).
The Jury’s Comment: A fascinating and lively portrait is raised by the point of view of “Mira” the protagonist, as documented by her granddaughter, in a peaceful manner from memories whom in the middle stands one of the fathers of Israeli documentary cinema, David Perlov. David’s story, from the eyes of Mira, sheds new lights to the life of the husband, father, grandfather, and director. The creation embodies feminine and intergenerational dialogue that creates new and rare familiarity with parts of “Diary” and Perlov’s significance as a creator. Mira’s point of view, and experiences at her late age permit a shrewd perspective of the balance between art and family. The strength and power of the creation, derived from the touching and feminine honesty of the protagnist’s love of cinema. This creations, among others are considered honorable mentions.
Written & Directed by: Alma Ben Zeev (Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel Aviv University).
The Jury’s Comment: “Help! I want to die” is witty and paradoxically lively script. The dialogues easily manage to introduce us to complicated, existential, and imaginative themes, written with great wit that is worthy of praise. The characters are designed comically and very well and the plot weaves the relationships around the central conflict in a unique way.
Screenplay: Dana Weil, Directed By: Dana Weil (The Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel Aviv University).
The Jury’s Comment: The cinematography in “The Boy” is spectacular, powerful and draws us into an experiential and stylish cinematic dimension. The cinematography uses the script and in a unique way that manages to dive in to subtleties and nuances that intelligently open the viewer’s heart to the story. The different perspectives are an indication to an artistic point of view, while accurately capturing the course of the scenes.
Cinematography: Ben Peled, Written & Directed by: Yahav Winner (Minshar School of Art).
The Jury’s Comment: Against the background of the world crisis of climate change, this documentary about a beach dead whale near the Gaza Strip constructs an ironic portrait of the banal brutality of our society in its relationship with the living.
Director and cinematographer: Ido Weisman, Screenwriters: Ido Weisman, Alex Khosid (The Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel Aviv University).
Written & Directed and produced by: Rachel Albert (Sapir College School of Audio & Visual arts).
The Jury’s Comment: This multilayered film experience reveals not only an editorial voice but an auteur voice as well since Alina Panasenko is also the screenwriter and director of Teatralna station.
Editor: Alina Panasenko, Philip Sotnychenko, Written & Directed by: Alina Panasenko (Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Theatre, Cinema and Television University).
The Jury’s Comment: For the wide range of cinematographic choices – free and fresh filmmaking approach in creating images that resonate/echo long after leaving the theater.
Cinematography: Manuel G. Romero
Director & Editor: Christian Avilés
Screenwriter & Producer: Nica Fazio
(ESCAC – Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya).
The Jury’s Comment: A very ambitious narrative approach in a very short duration – Uses animation to realize an ironic métaphor about human denial, upcycling, and the obsession for leaving a mark in the world after death.
Screenwriters,directors, cinematographers, editors and cast: Isaac Wenzek, Titouan Tillier, Trinidad Plass Caussade (EMCA – Ecole des Métiers du Cinéma d’Animation).
The Jury’s Comment: An accomplished filmmaking, the film heralds the arrival of a new directorial voice with this nocturnal portrayal of a young woman interpreted by Dostana Nikolic fighting for her life against the patriarchal society.
Director and producer: Danilo Stanimirović, Screenwriters: Danilo Stanimirović, Irena Parezanović (Faculty of Media and Communications, Serbia).
The Jury’s Comment: Bold, sensitive, uplifting, and visually striking take about a mother/son relationship portrayal in Colombian society.
Written & Directed by: Ismael García (Politecnico Colombiano Jaime Isaza Cadavid).
Director: Yael Arad Zafrir, Screenwriter: Yael Arad Zafrir, Efrat Arnon.
The Jury’s Comment: By the fascinating artistic vision and its technical qualities in picture and sound, the film manages to translate the story of the holocaust at its center to an original cinematic representation in a unique mix of compassion and rage.
Director & Screenwriter & Animation : Tal Kantor
The Jury’s Comment: For the directorial achievements that were reached by working with a unique ensemble cast made up of professional actors and non-actors alike, and by creating fascinating misenscene that emphasize the depth of the conflict and the pain that is shared by the two first female leading characters.
Written & Directed by: Hila Elena Royzenman
The Jury’s Comment: The poetic vision, and the unique shape of the film which combines between the documentary and narrative style of films, while also exemplifying a reliable performance in the cinematic sphere, manages to portray the juxtaposition between the experience of the mystery and the myth of religion to the disbelief and loss of hope in the life of the protagonist.
Director & Screenwriter & Producer: Itamar Alcalay
The Jury’s Comment: “Shared Square” presents a unique and captivating experience. Its beauty lies in how it brings two people together, even strangers, and allows them to connect through social and psychological interaction. The humor, references and friction are living examples of how to achieve a lot with a little.
Director, Producer & Game Designer: Shai Dayan (Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design Jerusalem)
The Jury’s Comment: This work by Ilchuk is direct, quiet, and imbued with a penetrating force. The abandoned post-industrial space is shot and edited beautifully. The central figure, a woman who works four jobs utterly alone, moves in a measured and slow pace. The dialogue established between the tough environment and this worker as she moves from one shift to the next in complete silence creates a complex portrait that depicts the ages that have defined her.
Written & Directed by :Nataliya Ilchuk
The Jury’s Comment: Guy’s family history resonates in the slivers of memory that emerge before us in sequence through ink drawing animation. The story, recounted in her voice, weaves a personal and collective memory, one of imagination and ideology. It is a tale of unremitting loss, a void of past experiences that is identifiable even to those who have yet to encounter it; ghosts within us that function as self-fulfilling prophecies, their mark left as shadows passed from one generation to the next.
Written & Directed by: Ayala Shoshana Guy
The Jury’s Comment: The pigeon’s song depicts the tragic love story of Carka’s grandparents during the time of dictatorship in the Republic of Albania with the reading of the grandfather’s prison journal. The film is a cycle of memory and fiction, blurring the differences between them. Carka invites viewers to a dialogue as he questions and undermines their memories and his own. With virtuoso skill, he effortlessly employs myriad techniques, building, replicating, and erasing, revealing the mechanism of renewed representation between the living body and its means of documentation.
Written & Directed by: Eneos Carka
The Jury’s Comment: a smart and poetic documentary that explores the consequences of an extraordinary event on those who witnessed it, including the director point of view.
Director and cinematographer: Ido Weisman, Screenwriters: Ido Weisman, Alex Khosid (The Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel Aviv University)
The Jury’s Comment: An impressive, condensed, suffocating work of cinema which uses it’s location excellenty, in light and eyes, those that peek inside and those that try to look out, and all that in order to tell a horribly depressing story about opression and exploitation. A creation which roots out serenity, and is fascinating visually.
Written & Directed and produced by: Rachel Albert (Sapir College School of Audio & Visual arts)
The Jury’s Comment: In a beautifully long shot, that continues for 14 minutes in the streets of Florentine, the story of an almost random meeting, chat, and farewell unfolds, while including in the film’s short duration a whole story of a relationship, from it’s beginning to it’s end. Additionally, it is a film with fascinating thought and execution and a film with a hug at it’s end offers one of the most touching endings that we saw during this year’s festival.
Written & Directed by: Daniel Gat (The Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel Aviv University)