The Colombian animated short film ‘All my scars fade in the wind’, directed by Angélica Restrepo and Carlos Velandia, has won the Grand Prize of the 64th edition of the Bilbao International Documentary and Short Film Festival, Zinebi, endowed with 7,000 euros .
World-premiered at the last edition of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival (France), the jury highlighted the way in which this short film “allows the viewer to travel through time, space and the sound of memory landscapes, guiding us by painful memories” that, over time, fade away.
Another of the main awards in the list of winners of the Official Section – International Short Film Competition, the Grand Prize for Best Basque Short Film, has been awarded to the documentary produced at the Elias Querejeta Zine Eskola in San Sebastián ‘Wild Flowers’, by Karla Crncevic, by his “brave and honest” interrogation on memory.
For its part, the Best Spanish Short Film has been awarded by the international jury to the documentary ‘Olores’, by Alba Esquinas, for being “a round piece, in which brutality and tenderness go hand in hand” in a film that ” shines for a precise use of resources”.
A total of 57 short films have competed in this edition of Zinebi, in which the Mikeldi Awards for genres have also been distributed for the best fiction short film for the French-German co-production ‘Backflip’ (Nikita Diakur), for the best animated short film for the Spanish-Brazilian co-production ‘Searching Heleny’ (Esther Vital García) and for the best documentary short film for the Serbian-Slovenian co-production ‘Balls’ (Gorana Jovanovic).
In addition, in the second year that Zinebi chooses a short film candidate to be the Best Short Film of the year at the European Film Academy Awards, the film chosen by the jury has been the German animated short film ‘Zoon’, by Jonatan Schwenk. .
The names of the award-winning short films have been announced this Friday by the members of the jury of this section, formed this year by the Romanian film programmer Anca Caramelea, the person in charge of the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (Germany) Hilke Doering, the editor, Colombian filmmaker and archivist Juan Soto Taborda, the writer Sabina Urraca and the doctor in Fine Arts and director of animation Begoña Vicario.
In the largest prize in the Official Section (endowed with 12,000 euros), which is awarded to the best first film of the ZIFF – Zinebi First Film International Competition, the winner was ‘Anhell69′, a Colombian production with Romanian, French and German whose director, Theo Montoya, had already obtained in the last three months a special mention at the International Critics’ Week in Venice and the Golden Dove at the German DOK Leipzig festival.
As they have recalled from the festival, which is organized by the Bilbao City Council, Montoya had competed in the Zinebi International Short Film Competition in 2020 with the documentary film ‘Son of Sodom’, the “seed” of the award-winning feature film in this edition.
The jury, made up of the Serbian artist and filmmaker Marta Popivoda, the director of Cinemanía magazine, Carlos Marañón, and the programmer, university professor and French writer Nicole Brenez, celebrate in their ruling “the good health” of current Colombian cinema and of ‘Anhell69’ highlights its “brilliant poetic structure” and its “spectacular formal and inventive hybridization”.
The jury also awarded a Special Mention to the documentary ‘Nuestra Película’ (Colombia-France), by director Diana Bustamante, whose European premiere was hosted by Zinebi, “for its courageous approach to the Colombian historical reality with a brilliant montage in which The use of images brings us closer to a new dimension where victims of violence are remembered and respected”.
The Young Jury Award – ZIFF (UPV/EHU), for its part, went to the film ‘How to Save a Dead Friend’, by Marusya Syroechkovskaya. OTHER AWARDS
In addition, the EiTB Audience Award went to ‘Searching Heleny (Cadê Heleny?)’ by Esther Vital García (Spain-Brazil), while the award granted by the Cineclub FAS for the best of the short films competing in the Bertoko section Begiradak – Miradas desde Euskadi has fallen on ‘Waiting and sediment’, by Tana Garrido Ruiz. Lastly, the Unicef award went to the fiction film ‘Son of the Sun’ (Kyrgyzstan), by Dastan Madalbekov.
The Closing Gala of the Festival, directed by María Goiricelaya and Ane Pikaza, will take place this afternoon at the Teatro Arriaga and, at its end, the short films awarded in the Official Palmarés of Zinebi 64 will be screened. In addition, tomorrow Saturday the Teatro Arriaga will offer the public the opportunity to see the award-winning films again.
Zinebi 64 and the Association of Basque Producers (EPE-APV), with funding from the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), the European Union-NextGenerationEU, EITB and the support of Creative Europe Desk Media Euskadi and the Zineuskadi Association (Basque Government), have held from Monday to Friday the fifth edition of ‘Zinebi Networking: Dokumentalen Sorgunea’, the Bilbao Professional Documentary Film Forum, an initiative aimed at promoting emerging creativity in the fields of Basque documentary film and the State.
For the first time, the Forum has had two competitions, both endowed with a grant of 10,000 euros for the winning production: one dedicated to Basque documentary feature film projects, among which the jury has chosen ‘Zikuñagako Ama’ (Pello Gutiérrez Peñalba ), from the production company Zazpi T’erdi, and another dedicated to State projects, among which the winner was ‘Elena gave birth to a beautiful child’ (Chiara Marañón & Juan Soto), from the production company LaCima Producciones, SL
On the other hand, Zinebi has also awarded the Aukera Awards this year, aimed at promoting the development of a short film project. The (H)EMEN Saria Award went to ‘Ultramarino’, directed by Maren Zubeldia, the Creation – Sortzaileen Saria Award went to ’87 fairies’, by Beatriz de Silva, while the Aukera Provincial Council of Bizkaia Award for the best project in Basque it will be received by ‘Komando Marmitako’, by Uxue Botas and Ane Nafarrate.
