In the Evening of Sunday, January 24th, the 4th altcineAction! awarded the prizes to the winners of this year’s competition at LAIS Theatre of The Greek Film Archive.
The closing ceremony of the festival started with a warm welcome to the audience, the contestants, the juries and the sponsors, and with the announcement that the festival from now on operates under the Auspices of Unesco.
This year we were honored to host Agron Domi, Director of TIFF, Marian Tutui, Artistic Director of Divan Film Festival, the academic Gergana Doncheva, the researcher Ana Grgic, Dubravko Slunjski, editor of the multi-awarded film A Wonderful Night in Split, the acclaimed French Film Critic Jean-Michel Frodon and of course our five winners of The 5C Project!
The first to receive their prize were the winners of The Best Critic Award, Mariana Hristova from Bulgaria, Galina Maksimovic from Serbia, Ozge Ozduzen from Turkey, Andrei Sendrea from Romania and Rhiannon Wain from the U.K.
The winners of the Best Critic Award get the chance to participate in The 5C Project and travel to four Balkan cities with low audiovisual capacity – Athens, Split, Cetate, Tirana – where they will attend interested workshops and will perfect their writing skills in company of top professionals and academics.
The jury, consisted of Dr. Marian Tutui, Dr. Lydia Papadimitriou, Dr. Gergana Doncheva and Ana Grgic, decided to award these five young critics for the following reason:
“The quality of critical writing this year has significantly improved – and we want to thank all the participants for their time and interest in new short films from the Balkans. Inevitably there were some very good contributions that we were unable to reward, and we hope to be able to do so in the future.
Considering both the quality and the quantity of film critiques this year, the jury’s task was even more challenging, and the competition much tougher than the previous years. We sought reviews that were original and insightful; that brought to the surface aspects of the films that other viewers may not have noticed; that expressed the reviewer’s opinion in a justifiable way; that were written in a way that could attract the reader and were also clearly communicated. We were impressed by the number of reviews written by some critics, but overall, quality was more important than quantity. Indeed, our primary criterion for the selection was the quality of the writing. We chose the five competitors, who were able to distinguish themselves through patience, their capacity for synthesis in writing, critical vision and a good grasp of the English language.
We hope that the prize will help these five young and developing writers in their possible future career as film critics, by enabling them to refine their writing skills and to create connections in the cinema industry and the film festival network in the region and beyond. We wish them luck as they embark on this cinematic caravan through one of the most exciting and lesser known European cinemas – that of the Balkans!”
The Best Cinematography Award went to the D.O.P of the film Pledge, George Tampakakis. The winner was awarded with a $1000 USD gift certificate to be redeemed directly through Zacuto, courtesy of MC Manios. The rationale of the jury – Olympia Mytilinaiou (GSC), Krum Rodriguez (BAC ) and Aleksandar Ilic – was the following:
“Very nice black and white approach,helping the way that the director want to say the story. You can feel the hot summer in Greece,very difficult lighting conditions.”
A special mention was given to the Cinematographer Spyros Papatriantafyllou for his work on the film Pyramid by Galaxy Spanos.
“Nice balance cinematography with a very good continuously movement.You get in the mood of the urban Athens life. Natural colours.”
The Editing Award was given to Blaž Gracar for his editing in the film Diving In by Simon Intihar.
The winner receives the the Avid Media Composer 7 software, courtesy of Avid/Telmaco S.A.
The rationale of the jury – Yorgos Mavropsaridis, Roxana Szel and Svetla Tsotsorkova – was the following:
“For the attempt to recreate a simple human story with the subtle presence of editing. That’s how editing has become inseparable part with the film.”
Diving In also received the Alida Dimitriou Award, the choice of altcine team.
The award offers the winner, Simon Intihar, whole post-production process, for his next film, provided by the company 2|35 and Costas Varibopiotis’ sound studio.
“In the 4th altcineAction we saw a number of important short films, making the task of awarding only one quite hard. We chose the film Diving-In by Simon Intihar from Slovenia, a film that deals with the universal theme of personal loss and the wounds it causes in the frame of social relationships, portraying, at the same time the mercy and the catharsis as elements of reconnection without being melodramatic, but with the decent understanding of the human condition.”
The three major prizes of altcineAction!, exclusively based on the audience’s votes and critiques, went to the films (in alphabetical order) Libelula by Mihai Salajan and Adelina Bulibasa, Pledge by Christos Gkotsis and See you in the morning by Alma Zekollari.
The three films will receive services for winners’ next production. More precisely,
Authorwave (Greece) offers full shooting package for 5 days, 16 hours of Color Correction with a colorist artist, the making of opening and end titles, 4Κ DCP mastering (with English or Greek subtitles).
DNA (Greece) will offer five days of sound post-production and final mix
Arctos (Greece) offers a full shooting package (HD Camera Black Magic 4K + Lenses set) and a lighting set.
Melancholy Star (based in London, UK) offers five days of Story Boarding or Visual effects.
The 4th altcineAction! Online Short Film Festival for Balkan Filmmakers ended with a closing cocktail at The Greek Film Archive.
