17th 25 FPS Festival: Award Winners

After four festival days and 27 films competing for the awards, the festival juries & audiences have decided on their favourites.

GRAND JURY GRAND PRIX

PIA BORG: Passing Place by Sofía Petersen and Shaun Finneran
This film whispered in my ear. In a world obsessed with visibility, hi-resolution and perfect rendering it asks us to lean in, focus, and imagine what’s not there, what’s disappeared. Developing images with an age-old alchemical process, the filmmakers have created a touching portrait of our time, evoking our collective memory loss, our mourning and our nostalgia. 

KATRIN MUNDT: The Canyon by Zachary Epcar
In a place where everything seems to happen on the surface, this film takes us deep into the infrastructures of desire on which our present moment is built. This is where humans and objects coexist in an uncanny state of interdependence, touching, penetrating and animating each other. Where possession is just another name for the loss we experience, for the void we leave behind when we move on.

IVAN MARUŠIĆ KLIF: Figure Minus Fact by Mary Helena Clark
Psychedelic salami, subtle light changes, blue filter, night camera, passing of time, decay and life... The film that drew me by the use of seemingly incompatible shooting techniques and unexpected motifs that were yet connected with such outstanding subtlety and rhythm. I felt a strong inner logic that was cryptic to me but I didn't feel the need to decrypt it. I just let go and entered the private space of Mary Helena Clark.

CRITICS' JURY AWARD (Patrick Gamble, Michelle Koch, Ana Kovačić): Flowers Blooming in Our Throats by Eva Giolo
Our prize goes to a film that gives expression to the micro-aggressions that go unseen in our society by combining the endless repetition of domestic chores with a choreographed dialogue of gestures and children's games. A film of deafening silence and a creeping sense of unease.

AUDIENCE AWARD:
One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean by Yuyan Wang

GREEN DCP AWARD for the Croatian film in the programme: Laci's Great Escape by David Gašo
The Green DCP Award goes to the imaginative and humorous tale about coming-of-age and escaping conventions, especially the cinematic ones. A pastiche of slapstick and surrealism, which captured us with its relaxation, humour and a playful worldview.

Stills: The Canyon, Figure Minus Fact, Passing Place, Flowers Blooming in Our Throats, One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean, Laci's Great Escape