Al Djanat and Apolonia, Apolonia stand out at the fifth edition of MajorDocs
by Cineuropa
- The documentaries by Chloé Aïcha Boro and Lea Glob receive the jury and audience awards, respectively, at the international documentary film festival in Mallorca
The documentaries Al Djanat, the Original Paradise [+see also:
film review
film profile], directed by Chloé Aïcha Boro, and Apolonia, Apolonia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lea Glob
film profile], directed by Lea Glob, received awards at the closing gala of the fifth MajorDocs – Mallorca Documentary Film Festival, while The Dependents by Sofia Brockenshire received a special mention from the jury.
The jury, made up of Israeli director Avi Mograbi (Between Fences [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], The First 54 Years – An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Avi Mograbi
film profile]), Sylvie Gadamer and the Berlinale Talents Doc Station director Zeynep Güzel, judged Al Djanat, a co-production between France, Burkina Faso, Benin and Germany, to be a film that “opens a window into a world where religion, tradition and modernity collide in an inverted exile of the director”. They also wanted to emphasise the director's "objective, intimate and profound look" at her family to create "a perspective that questions with courage and sincerity". The jury's award consists of a cash prize of 1,500 euros. And on The Dependents, a co-production between Canada and Argentina, they highlighted its "high creative potential" to tell a story around the concepts of exile and migration "in a different sense to what we are used to, from south to north". In doing so, they add, the director "invites the audience on a journey through memories that resonate in the present".
The audience voted Apollonia, Apollonia, a Danish-Polish co-production, as the best film of the festival. This documentary focuses on the young artist Apolonia, one of the leading names in contemporary art.
On the other hand, following its participation in the MajorDocs PITCH meetings, the project El árbol de la sombra rota (The Tree of the Broken Shadow) by Nicolás Baksht, a project that explores the history of the director's own family, between feminicides in Mexico, executions in Spain and anti-Semitism in Belarus, received a prize of 1,500 euros, in addition to the DAE grant. And Alberto Gemmi's Il tempio della memoria (The Temple of Memory), a journey into the memories of a cemetery, received a special mention.
More than 2,000 people attended the different sessions of the festival, in addition to the hundred or so people who attended the closing gala held at S'Escorxador. The festival also had the participation of more than seventy national and international professionals, as well as the attendance of 864 students from 12 schools in the Balearic Islands in the MajorDocs EDUCA sessions.
The list of awards:
Jury Prize
Al Djanat, the Original Paradise [+see also:
film review
film profile] - Chloé Aïcha Boro (France/Burkina Faso/Benin/Germany)
Special Mention
The Dependents - Sofia Brockenshire (Canada/Argentina)
Audience Award
Apolonia, Apolonia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lea Glob
film profile] - Lea Glob (Denmark/Poland)
MajorDocs PITCH Award
El árbol de la sombra rota (The Tree of the Broken Shadow) - Nicolás Baksht (Mexico)
Special Mention
Il tempio della memoria (The Temple of Memory) - Alberto Gemmi (Italy)
(Translated from Spanish by Vicky York)
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