Spiros Jacovides’s Black Stone grabs the Golden Apricot award
- Drifter, Endless Borders and Magic Mountain are among the other winners of the 20th edition of Armenia’s major film gathering
The anniversary edition of the Golden Apricot International Film Festival drew to a close on Saturday night with an elegant awards ceremony at Yerevan’s Cinema House, followed by a screening of Atom Egoyan’s Calendar (1993).
The International Competition jury highlighted the Greek film Black Stone [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Spiros Jacovides for its “strong portrait of today’s Greece” and its “admirable acting.” The Silver Apricot went to Simão Cayatte’s Drifter, described by the jury as “an impressive and emotional film with a unique aesthetic and artistic expression.” Tomer Heyman’s I Am Not won the Humanitarian Award for being “sensitively and courageously staged documentary cinema,” while the Special Mention was handed to Zara Dwinger’s Kiddo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Zara Dwinger
film profile], characterised as “carefully staged between vintage and real life, projection and everyday life, anger and longing.”
The Golden Apricot in the Regional Panorama Competition was taken by Endless Borders [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Abbas Amini
film profile], outlined by the jury as an “absorbing, strongly acted drama of impossible choices under oppression.” The Georgian-German documentary Magic Mountain [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mariam Chachia, Nik Voigt
film profile] received the Silver Apricot award for being a “deeply considered, poetic documentary” which portrays an “evocative symbol of power structures in Georgia.” The Special Mention was granted to Notes on Displacement [+see also:
trailer
film profile] for capturing the hardship of displacement with “great immediacy, humanity, and an approach that emotionally devastates but never manipulates the audience.” Additionally, the FIPRESCI Award was bestowed upon Mehran Tamadon’s documentary My Worst Enemy in which the director simulates being interrogated by agents of the Islamic Republic.
Finally, the big winner of the Apricot Stone Competition for Best Short Film was the poetic Armenian animation The Song of the Flying Leaves, produced and directed by Armine Anda and co-written by Roman Balayan. The film also received the Gennadi Melkonyan Special prize.
The Grand Prix co-production award of $5,000 in the GAIFF Pro Industry Platform went to the fiction project in development The Passport by Rakan Mayasi, a co-production between Palestine, Jordan, Serbia, and Germany. The project also won the post-production award, while the Special Mention was given to the Armenian-French-Swedish co-production Homemade Mulberry Vodka by Anzhela Frangyan.
Here is the full list of award winners at the 20th Golden Apricot International Film Festival:
International Feature Film Competition
Golden Apricot
Black Stone [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - Spiros Jacovides (Greece)
Silver Apricot
Drifter - Simão Cayatte (Portugal/France/Poland)
Award for the Best Humanitarian Film
I Am Not - Tomer Heymann (Israel/Guatemala)
Special Mention
Kiddo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Zara Dwinger
film profile] - Zara Dwinger (Netherlands)
Zangezur Copper Molybdenum Combine prize
I Am Not - Tomer Heymann (Israel/Guatemala)
Regional Panorama Feature Film Competition
Golden Apricot
Endless Borders [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Abbas Amini
film profile] – Abbas Amini (Germany/Iran/Czech Republic)
Silver Apricot
Magic Mountain [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mariam Chachia, Nik Voigt
film profile] - Mariam Chachia, Nik Voigt (Germany/Georgia)
Special Mention
Notes on Displacement [+see also:
trailer
film profile] - Khaled Jarrar (Palestine/Germany/Qatar)
FIPRESCI Award
My Worst Enemy - Mehran Tamadon (France/Switzerland)
Apricot Stone Short Film Competition
Golden Apricot
The Song of the Flying Leaves – Armine Anda (Armenia)
Silver Apricot
Stones – Arman Ayvazyan (Armenia)
Special Mention
Emptiness – Tigran Aghajanyan
Freedom Broker Armenia Prize
From the Work of The Devil – Dessil Mekhtigian (Armenia/Egypt)
Gennadi Melkonyan Special Award
The Song of the Flying Leaves – Armine Anda (Armenia)
GAIFF Pro Industry Platform
Co-Production Market
Grand Prix
The Passport – dir. Rakan Mayasi / prod. Zorana Mušikić (Palestine, Jordan, Serbia, Germany)
Special Mention
Homemade Mulberry Vodka – dir. Anzhela Frangyan / prod. Stéphane Jourdain (Armenia, France, Sweden)
Residency Award
Ever Since I Knew Myself - Maka Gogaladze (Georgia, Germany)
Mentorship Award
Grounding – dir. Merri Mkrtchyan / prod. Yelizaveta Petrosyan (Armenia)
Post-Production Award
The Passport - dir. Rakan Mayasi/prod. Zorana Mušikić (Palestine, Jordan, Serbia, Germany)
Short Cuts Nest
Best Short Film Project
Paid Mourners – dir. Ovsanna Gevorgyan / prod. Vardan Hakobyan (Armenia)
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