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BRIFF 2021 Awards

Limbo is the big winner at the 4th Brussels International Film Festival

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- The second feature by British filmmaker Ben Sharrock, already laureate of the Cannes 2020 Label, has won the Grand Prix

Limbo is the big winner at the 4th Brussels International Film Festival
Limbo by Ben Sharrock

The 4th edition of the Brussels International Film Festival ended on Saturday 11 September with the announcement of its prize list, at the top of which was the British film Limbo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ben Sharrock
film profile
]
by Ben Sharrock. The film, a powerful comedy-drama about the welcoming of a group of refugees awaiting papers on a small Scottish island, tackles a subject that is as urgent as it is burning, and questions the Scots as much as the Europeans about their attitude towards the world.

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The InternationaL Competition jury has also awarded the Jury Prize to Chinese film Ripples of Life by Shujun Wei, while the Audience Award in that section went to Swiss film Olga [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Elie Grappe
film profile
]
by Elie Grappe – a welcome prize since the film comes out in Belgium on 17 November.

The festival also welcomed a Directors’ Week, led notably by the Associations des Réalisateurs et Réalisatrices Francophones (ARRF). This year's prize list focuses on documentary films by women. That section’s Grand Prix was given to French film The Kiosk [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Alexandra Pianelli, the filmed journal of the filmmaker, a young visual artist who goes to give a helping hand to her mother, a newspaper seller in a chic neighbourhood of Paris. From the discovery of the profession to the complicity that develops with the customers, the director plays the merchant, as in an old childhood dream. But the printed press is in crisis and this little game turns out to be more complicated than expected…

The Jury Prize was handed to Laure Portier’s Soy Libre [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, discovered at ACID. The Portuguese film The Metamorphosis of Birds [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Catarina Vasconcelos
film profile
]
by Catarina Vasconcelos, a hybrid work that oscillates between documentary and fiction, received a Special Mention, as well as the Young European Jury Prize.

As for the National Competition, the Grand Prix went to the dreamlike film Lucie Loses Her Horse [+see also:
film review
interview: Claude Schmitz
film profile
]
by Claude Schmitz, which follows the peregrinations of a young actress wondering about her career. The Jury Prize was given to Becoming Mona [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Nie…
film profile
]
, from duo Sabinne Lubbe Bakker and Niels Van Koevorden, which also received the Cinevox Prize. Slightly unusual, we will note that the Acting Prize went to the protagonists of the documentary Phèdre ou l’explosion des corps confinés by Méryl Fortunat-Rossi, which follows the return to work, a few weeks after the beginning of the health crisis, of a theatre troupe moved by an irrepressible need to express itself through its art, but whose future is suspended onto the capricious evolution of the pandemic, the ultimate antagonist. Finally, the Audience Award went to Dark Heart of the Forest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Serge Mirzabekiantz
film profile
]
by Serge Mirzabekiantz.

The full list of winners is below:

International Competition

Grand Prix
Limbo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ben Sharrock
film profile
]
– Ben Sharrock (Royaume-Uni)

Jury Prize
Ripples of Life - Shujun Wei (China)

Audience Award
Olga [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Elie Grappe
film profile
]
- Elie Grappe (Suisse/Ukraine/France)

Directors’ Week

Grand Prix
The Kiosk [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
- Alexandra Pianelli (France)

Jury Prize
Soy Libre [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
- Laure Portier (France/Belgium)

Special Mention
The Metamorphosis of Birds [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Catarina Vasconcelos
film profile
]
- Catarina Vasconcelos (Portugal)

Young European Jury Prize
The Metamorphosis of Birds - Catarina Vasconcelos

National Competition

Grand Prix
Lucie Loses Her Horse [+see also:
film review
interview: Claude Schmitz
film profile
]
- Claude Schmitz (Belgium/France)

Jury Prize
Becoming Mona [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Nie…
film profile
]
- Sabbine Lubbe Bakker and Niels Van Koevorden (Belgium/Netherlands)

Acting Prize
Phèdre ou l’explosion des corps confinés - Méryl Fortunat-Rossi (Belgium/France)

Audience Award
Dark Heart of the Forest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Serge Mirzabekiantz
film profile
]
- Serge Mirzabekiantz (Belgium/France)

Other Prizes

Cinevox Prize
Becoming Mona - Sabbine Lubbe Bakker and Niels Van Koevorden

RTBF Prize
Quo Vadis, Aida? [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jasmila Žbanić
film profile
]
- Jasmila Zbanić (Bosnia and Herzegovina/Austria/Romania/France/Netherlands/Germany/Poland/Norway/Turkey)

Be TV Prize
Olga - Elie Grappe

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(Translated from French)

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