7° International Festival Segni della Notte / Urbino-Italy

STUDENT JURY

MAIN AWARD

Memoires of Vincennes

Mémoires du Bois

Theo Vincent

France / 2023 / 0:20:29

The Bois de Vincennes. The ruins of a colonial exposition building where strange voices and old images slumber that no one wants to revive. Yet Moussa has only one obsession: to keep close to him his friend whose lifeless body has returned to Senegal.

JURY DECLARATION

The Main Award from the student jury goes to "Memoire of Vincennes" by Theo Vincent. The darkroom serves as a metaphor for the desire to flesh out memories that only become real when printed. Moussa has only one means to hold on to his deceased friend: the photographs hung on the branches of trees in the forest where he loved to get lost are the only thing making his friend Yacouba, who returned lifeless from Vincennes to Senegal, immortal. Even though hanging them up earns him the hatred of his community, accusing him of bringing bad luck. The coexistence of past and present is beautifully translated in the organicity of photographic media: the viewer sees them united in a single body, like life and death, film, cathode tube and digital images.

SIGNS AWARD

The Signs Award honours films, which treat an important subject in an original and convincing way

S.O.S.

Bruno Soares

Portugal / 2022 / 0:26:14

In the midst of robbing a house in Lisbon, Jaime is caught by the owner Alberto, who mistakes him for his son. As Alberto and his wife Madalena take him in, Jaime gradually forgets about the robbery.

ITALIAN PREMIERE

JURY DECLARATION

The Signes Award from the Student Jury goes to "SÓS" by Bruno Soares, for its ability to make the false plausible thanks to a careful cinematography and a narrative that keeps the viewer in the dark as much as the deceived old couple. There is also another aspect portrayed by the dim lights: the emotional dependencies of parents towards the false son, who embodies all the possible sons of the world.

NIGHT AWARD

The Night Award honours films, which are able to balance ambiguity and complexity characterized by enigmatic mysteriousnes
and subtleness, which keeps mind and consideration moving

The Discoverer of the Discoverers

C. S. Nicholson

Norway / 2022 / 0:24:52

A family in West Africa tells the story of how their ancestor discovered the European explorers — to a European film crew. We get to see how this encounter is still re membered ritually. But do all the claims about the historic event bear a closer look? And to which degree can we trust the filmmaker’s white gaze? This short documentary explores how pride and conscience may affect collective memories.

JURY DECLARATION

The Night Award from the student jury goes to "The Discover of Discoverers" by C. S. Nicholson for its skill in presenting, in a very short time frame, history from a perspective different from the one that we are used to. The reversal of the point of view places the colonizer in the eyes of the colonized, in 1548: on the other side of the mirror, it is no longer so clear what discovery is and who is discovering what. The narrative device of a past window story about an ancestor of a family speaking to us today projects the issue onto the present. However, the acquisition of a new perspective is anything but comforting: how close to reality can the return of the white gaze be?

EDWARD SNOWDEN AWARD

The Edward Snowden Award honors films, which offer sensitive (mostly) unknown information, facts and phenomena
of eminent importance, for which the festival wishes a wide proliferation in the future.

The Dreams in Images

Zicong Wang

United Kingdom / 2023 / / 0:11:46

In an era characterized by the ceaseless barrage of digital imagery, where pixels paint narratives and screens mirror realities, the influence of images on human thought and behaviours has reached unprecedented heights. "The Dreams in Images," an essay documentary, offers an introspective journey through contemporary China's ever-evolving landscape of image culture. In this essay, I critically explore our documentary's thematic underpinning, dissecting the profound relationship between the people of China and the images that inundate their lives and beliefs.

ITALIAN PREMIERE

JURY DECLARATION

The Edward Snowden award from the Student Jury goes to "Dreams in Images" by Zicong Wang for the ability to fragment the cinematic image into its essential Définition des Prixcomponents, bringing the image itself to the forefront of the narrative. The photography captures a constantly evolving landscape, unable to fully capture it. Despite projecting into the future, the camera manages to portray the river waters but cannot grasp them. All the viewer can do is enjoy the images — dream of them — as they flow away forever.

JURY AWARD FOR THE POETRY OF RESISTANCE

Things Unheard Of

Ramazan Kilic

Turkey / 2023 / 0:16:00

A little girl tries to put a smile back on her grandmother’s face after the disappearance of her television, her only window on the world.

ITALIAN PREMIERE

JURY DECLARATION

The special jury prize goes to "Things Unheard Of”. If antennas at home are denied, the fiction of television can be constructed by acting behind a cardboard frame. This is how a Kurdish girl, K?l?ç, manages to lift the spirits of her grandmother — and the entire village — after the Turkish army deactivates the TV antennas in their homes. The poetry of revolution – against censorship and the denial of human rights – is built from the reveries of everyday life.

SPECIAL MENTION FOR THE NIGHT AWARD

Manta Ray

Raie Manta

Anton Bialas

France / 2022 / 0:29:38

MANTA RAY is a fragmented portrayal of three characters in search of poetic and liberating openings in a muzzled and gradually authoritarian Paris of the 2020’s. United under the sign of the MANTA RAY, Kamilya, Ghost Rider and Gilles, each in their own way, organizes his secret melody, crafts a situation, where, alternately, a sense of lightness can be found, suffocated screams can uprise and reality be distorted into new horizons.

JURY DECLARATION

The students jury gives a special mention to "Manta Ray" by A.Bialas. Through the use of surgical and meticulous cinematography, the film — with a narrative structure reminiscent of book chapters — keeps the viewer on edge.