Short Film Festival: Main prize goes to Vietnam, audience award stays in Winterthur

The Advancement Award goes to the Norwegian Marte Vold. The Swiss competition prizes go twice to Geneva: the prize for the best Swiss film goes to Eileen Hofer, the Swiss Cinematography Prize to Maxime Kathari. And the visitors, for their part, awarded the Audience Award worth 10,000 francs to the up-and-coming director Matthias Sahli from Winterthur. The Short Film Festival counted 17,000 admissions over all days.

It was an intensive week for the five jurors of the 19th Winterthur International Short Film Festival, according to a press release. 39 films had to be judged in the International Competition alone. Luciano Barisone, Sally Berger, Calmin Borel, Lamia Joreige and Vangelis Mourikis, who sit on the competition jury, selected the Vietnamese experimental film "The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music" by the collective "The Propeller Group" as the winner of the main prize (12,000 Swiss francs, SRG SSR). The jury praised the film for building a bridge between tradition and modernity by skillfully blending traditional culture and performance art, documentary and staged footage, visual beauty and frenzied rhythm. The jury awarded the sponsorship prize (CHF 10,000, Sulzer Foundation Winterthur) to "Totem" (Norway 2015) by Marte Vold - for a film that convincingly and originally shows the moment of slight discomfort in a relationship. With sober dramaturgy, a cool, almost cruel gaze and a great deal of humor and skill, the film makes use of the means of tragicomedy.

Swiss competition prizes go to Geneva

The jury awards the prize for the best Swiss film in the amount of CHF 10,000 (Suissimage/SSA) to "Nuestro Mar" (Switzerland 2015) by Eileen Hofer from Geneva. The jury praised the film for its fine and careful observation. Hofer's work is "full of tender glances, profound dialogs, hope for a bright future despite a bleak present, dreamt against the boundlessness of the horizon". The jury would also like to praise the dramaturgical strength of "Moriom" (Switzerland 2015) by Fribourg-based Francesca Scalisi and Mark Olexa - "Moriom" allows us to enter the universe of madness as part of the real world and a society in which injustice and violence make any humanity impossible, according to the jury. The Swiss Camera Award, endowed with 11,500 francs (non-cash prize, Canon), goes to Maxime Kathari from Geneva. Kathari is being honored for his camera work in the short film "O som da casa" (France/Switzerland 2015), for which he is also responsible as director. The jury was impressed by the way in which the camera sensitively captures the feelings of two people in the film and allows us to experience the mystery of life through the eyes of the protagonists.

Winterthur up-and-coming director wins audience award

The audience also had the choice: 58 films from 25 countries were up for selection as winners of the Audience Award. In the end, a Winterthur native pulled off the coup: the audience awarded its prize worth CHF 10,000 (Zürcher Kantonalbank) to "Hausarrest" (Switzerland 2015) by Matthias Sahli. Sahli made the film as part of his bachelor's degree at the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK and was already in competition at the Locarno Film Festival. "We've always had directors from Winterthur in the competition in recent years. However, the local advantage alone has never been decisive for the Audience Award", says John Canciani, Artistic Director of the Short Film Festival, "Matthias is at the beginning of his career and already has his very own visual language - it's great that our visitors appreciated this."

Best Swiss school film goes to Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts

The prize for the best Swiss school film, worth CHF 5,000 (SRG SSR), was awarded on Thursday as part of the 8th Swiss Film School Day. This went to "Seemannsgarn" (Switzerland 2015) by Claudia Wirth and Julia Munz from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Animation course. For their part, the youth judged the youth program put together especially for them and awarded the Youth Film Prize worth CHF 500 to "If Mama Ain't Happy, Nobody's Happy" (2014) by Dutch filmmaker Mea Dols de Jong. The out-of-competition Short Run Award for the most promising screenplay goes to Nikola Ilić for his project "Rakijada". The award includes post-production services in kind in the amount of CHF 12,000 (Tweaklab).

Short films about Winterthur: standing ovation and good prospects for the 20th anniversary

The highlight of this year's Short Film Festival was the screening of the 5 x 5 x 5 project, in which five filmmakers from five crisis regions of the world were guests in Winterthur for five weeks to make five short films on the subject of "In Exile". The world premiere of these films attracted around 500 visitors to Theater Winterthur yesterday, Saturday. And they were rewarded: the five filmmakers, Layla Abyad (Syria), Sahera Dirbas (Palestine), Alina Rudnitskaya (Russia), Dmytro Tiazhlov (Ukraine) and Naama Noach (Israel), succeeded in producing touching and humorous films in a very short space of time. At the end, the audience gave them a standing ovation. "A very emotional moment for the five filmmakers, but especially for us organizers. The screening of 5 x 5 x 5 brought the industry and, above all, visitors from Winterthur together to celebrate their passion for short films. The best conditions for next year's edition, when the people of Winterthur will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of their short film festival," says Remo Longhi, Commercial Director of the Short Film Festival. Over 650 guests from the international short film industry visited Winterthur over the last few days, and the festival counted 17,000 admissions across all days.

The 20th Winterthur International Short Film Festival will take place from November 8 to 13, 2016.