SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 4 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The co-production between Armenia, Germany and Lithuania ‘Aurora’s Sunrise’, by filmmaker Inna Sahakyan, has won the Jury Award for Best Documentary at the 16th edition of the MiradasDoc Festival.
The film tells the story of a woman who at the age of fourteen lost everything in the Armenian Genocide and who, four years later, was able to start her life anew in New York, where she became a media sensation playing herself in one of of the Hollywood blockbusters, ‘Auction of souls’.
The award, endowed with 6,000 euros, has been awarded by the Jury made up of Hicham Falah, Jane Mote and Ricardo Acosta for being “a convincing story elegantly embroidered through the archive, animation and fiction framed in a little-known genocide, that sheds light and awareness on today’s political tensions and challenges”.
In addition, it has awarded a Special Mention to ‘Tsumu, Hvor gar du hen med dine dromme?’ (Where do you go with your dreams?), by Danish filmmaker Kasper Kiertzner. This documentary shows two young people from Tasiilaq (Greenland) who do not give a damn about the prejudices they encounter when they put on makeup to go out to a party and insist on talking about their problems with alcohol, sexual abuse and suicide.
The Jury mentions the film for “telling a story of resistance and hope that inspires us through the lens of the youth of a marginalized community.” “We want to recognize the incredible contribution of the subjects in capturing the most intimate stories of their lives,” he adds.
For its part, the Cuban production ‘Camino de lava’, by Gretel Marín, won the Best Documentary Short Film Award, endowed with 2,500 euros. It is a film about a queer woman who tries to educate her son in a society that devalues him.
The same Jury has awarded this award to the filmmaker for having created “an honest and creative representation of the resilience and passion that is alive on the margins of society and that offers a new and much-needed perspective on Cuba” and adds that it is ” a story about the empowerment of women and their need to generate radicalism in the new generations beautifully filmed and observed”.
AWARDS OF THE OPERA PRIMA, NATIONAL AND PUBLIC SECTION
The Moroccan feature film ‘Fragments from heaven’, by Adnane Baraka, has won the Best First Feature Award, endowed with 4,000 euros, which has been awarded by the Jury made up of Alejandro Salgado, Mariana Barassi and Yvette de los Santos. It is a story of a nomad and a scientist who travel through the Moroccan desert looking for meteorites.
The members of the Jury have awarded it for “the courage in taking on a project that speaks of the past, the present and the future in a spiritual timelessness, in which religion and science form part of a whole”.
The feature film ‘La mala familia’, by Nacho A. Villar and Luir Rojo, which shows the reunion of a group of friends, on the occasion of the release of one of them from jail, has won the Best Spanish Documentary Award , endowed with 4,000 euros.
The aforementioned Jury has awarded this award for “creating a collective portrait of current masculine fragility, showing a defiant youth through different narratives in an unprejudiced and dynamic way.”
In this same section of the contest, a Special Mention has been awarded to ‘Hafreiat’, by Alex Sardà, who addresses the problem of a Jordanian worker in an archaeological exploitation led by a Spanish team, who tries to change the life of his family, but is His criminal record makes it difficult. The Jury has awarded this special mention “for the construction of a fluid and cyclical cinematographic narrative, appropriate to the concept on which the film reflects, with a complicit and prudent approach to the protagonist”.
Lastly, the Audience Award went to the film ‘Inshallah’, by the Spanish filmmaker Paula Bilbao, which debuts in the documentary with this feature film about the story of several migrants who left Africa to end up detained for months in the macrocamp of The Roots (Tenerife).
