Official, Audience and Independent Awards

Golden Gentian - Grand Prix City of Trento

For the film that best represents the cultural objectives inspiring the Festival overall, being of high artistic quality.

6000€

Un pasteur

Louis Hanquet

France / 2024 / 71' / Italian premiere

The film offered us a mesmerizing portrait of a young man choosing a life that left us all in admiration. The director captures moments of Felix’s life surrounded by animals, let it be dogs or sheep, he cares about with a most sensitive glance. In the grander scheme of things, A SHEPHERD calls for respect and humility in front of a community of animals, humans and nature living together in harmony.

Golden Gentian CAI - Italian Alpine Club

For the best film on mountaineering, mountain people and life in the mountains.

3000€

Le fils du chasseur

Juliette Riccaboni

Switzerland / 2023 / 54' / Italian premiere

Le fils du chasseur presents the life of a young Swiss-Moroccan with heart-warming effect as he aims to reconnect with his Caucasian father. His reach out meets moments of truth about his dad and old buddy Charlot’s lives in ways that connects the audience to those left behind in society.

SPECIAL MENTION

Marmolada – Madre Roccia

by Matteo Maggi, Cristiana Pecci (Italy/2024/76’)

Golden Gentian City of Bolzano-Bozen

For the best exploration or adventure movie.

3000€

The Great White Whale

Michael Dillon

Australia / 2023 / 104' / Italian premiere

For the courage, the resourcefulness of the crew, the climate of camaraderie that shines through from the stories of the protagonists and the skilful use of the archives. The great white whale is not only the first successful attempt to climb the Big Ben peak. It also is the metaphorical value of a distant horizon to be followed collectively, taking advantage of the experiences of those who preceded us in the same challenges. It reminds us that there is nothing riskier than doing nothing and what we will regret when we are too tired and old are the possibilities we didn't take.

Silver Gentian

For the best artistic-technical contribution.

1500€

Body of a Line

Henna Taylor

United States / 2023 / 10' / Italian premiere

Henna Taylor’s new stylish animated documentary adventure is about Madaleine Sorkin’s Dunn-Westboy Direct on Longs Peak, over a “No Falls”-day accomplishment. It is described with a heartful narration across her ongoing attempts to achieve this goal. To paraphrase Madaleine, ‘It Feels Like Symphony in Our Body’.

Silver Gentian

For the best short film.

1500€

Postcards from the Verge

Natalia Koniarz

Poland / 2023 / 40' / Italian premiere

An intimate story of two young travelers/filmmakers. While journeying through the Andes, they experience many unforeseen difficulties, ranging from the covid pandemic to border crossings. In uncertain times, their relationship matures as they encounter the hardship of local residents’ lives.

SPECIAL MENTION

Silent Panorama

by Nicolas Piret (Belgium/2024/5')

Jury Prize

2000€

Diciassette

Thomas Horat

Switzerland / 2023 / 17' / Italian premiere

The stories of men and women and memories of places combine harmoniously in Antonietta’s words. Her recollections take us back to the time when it was necessary to make a choice in Italy. 17 recounts how a young partisan woman fighting against Fascism consciously contributed to the freedom of generations that were to follow.

Audience Award - Best mountaineering film
 Rotari

For the mountaineering, climbing and adventure film, of any length, most voted by the audience among all the films in the program.

Monte Corno - Pareva che io fussi in aria

Luca Cococcetta

Italy / 2024 / 72' / Italian premiere

Audience Award - Best full-length film 
DAO - CONAD

For the film most voted by the audience among the feature documentaries in Competition.

Segnali di vita

Leandro Picarella

Italy, Switzerland / 2023 / 106'

RAI Trento Award

For the best documentary on current affairs. Established by the RAI branch in Trento.

750€

The jury, made up of Sergio Pezzola, Walter Perinelli and Stefano Uccia has assigned the 2023 RAI award at Trento Film Festival to the documentary:

Il Ritorno del Lupo

Niccolò Barca, Tommaso Merighi

Italy / 2023 / 23' / Italian premiere

With original images and interviews, the documentary recounts environmental and sociological matters linked to the reappearance of wolves in the Alps, after they had disappeared for almost a century. Not everyone is happy, especially among those living and working in the mountains. The story is recounted with a simple and immediate language, to describe a fascinating animal and its precarious coexistence with man in an increasingly domesticated landscape where livestock graze. The events are organised into chapters, concluding with the hope that the right balance will be found between man and one of his great antagonists.

Mario Bello Award CCC - CAI

For the film that best reflects the values and ideals of Club Alpino Italiano. Established by the  Film Centre and Film Library of Club Alpino Italiano.

1500€

The jury, made up of Monica Brenga, Giovanni Pivetti and Angelo Schena, has decided to assign the "Mario Bello" Award to the film

The Great White Whale

Michael Dillon

Australia / 2023 / 104' / Italian premiere

Who wouldn't want to be in a bard's story? Who wouldn't want to have companions who even in the midst of a violent storm know how to be supportive, and who still have time for a smile? Who wouldn't want to be recounted in a film where adventure, friendship and the desire for knowledge interweave with expertise and even levity?

Solidarity Award - Banca per il Trentino - Alto Adige

Established by the Banca per il Trentino - Alto Adige for the work that best interprets situations of poverty, injustice, social marginalisation and isolation that can be resolved through solidarity and mutual help, as occurred at the beginning of the cooperative movement in the valleys and mountains of Trentino.

1000€

The jury, made up of Franco Dapor, Ermanno Villotti, Michele Goller and Andrea Schir, has decided to award the prize to the film

The Ice Builders

Francesco Clerici, Tommaso Barbaro

Italy / 2024 / 15' / Italian premiere

The commitment of the inhabitants in the Zanskar area, dependent on glaciers to provide them with water for crops and to rear animals. Faced with climate change and negative external factors leading to recurring drought, they combine their efforts to construct small artificial glaciers, with ingenuity and patient solidarity, to feed the water table, demonstrating in concrete terms how everything is interdependent and linked.

Students’ Award - Universities of Trento, Bolzano and Innsbruck

Established by the Universities of Trento, Bolzano and Innsbruck for a work of particular cultural value made by a director under the age of 33.

1500€

The international jury for the prize, made up of Giovanni De Fazio, Matilde Calabri, Erika Luraschi (UniTn), Tino-Roberto Bros, Daniel Walcher, Matilde Baldassari (UniBz), Andreas Steuxner, Sasa Tomincic and Lena Westreicher (UniInnsbruck), has decided to award the 2024 special prize offered by these institutions to:

Wheels On The Bus

Surya Shahi

Nepal / 2022 / 15' / Italian premiere

or the clear and engrossing exploration of delicate issues with which the director succeeds in immersing the viewer in the story. The jury wishes to reward the sensitivity and carefully chosen imagery. The framing, sound and editing choices have contributed to creating a story with characters marked by their narrative depth, while maintaining a balance between profundity and levity.

The jury has also decided to award a special mention to

Piblokto

by Anastasia Shubina, Timofey Glinin (United States, Russia/2023/38')

MOTIVATION
The clarity of the images was striking, leaving no space to hide behind fiction, as was the suspension of judgement in the context of verismo/realism, confronting viewers with brutal moments in everyday life.

Anthropocene MuSe Award

Established by MUSE – Trento Science Museum, it is assigned to the work that best recounts the relationship between nature and mankind in the Anthropocene epoch.

1000€

The jury, made up of Stefano Zecchi, Massimo Bernardi, Davide Dalpiaz, Alice Labor, Fabio Pupin and Luca Scoz, has unanimously decided to award the prize to the film:

Death of a mountain

Nuno Escudeiro

Portugal, France / 2023 / 37'

By mixing period footage and current affairs, a narration is created falling between reality and metaphor, showing the protagonist's disenchantment with the mountains. From the idyllic site of childhood memories, the mountains become a frontier land and place of conflict, where problems apparently distant from global affairs become dramatically close and tangible, inevitably involving the inhabitants of these places.

CinemAMoRe Award

Established jointly by the International Archaeological Film Festival of Rovereto, Trento Film Festival and Religion Today Filmfestival, the award goes to the best work/film/documentary featuring filmmakers, productions, stories and protagonists from Trentino Alto-Adige.

The jury, made up of Andrea Morghen, Claudia Beretta and Michele Bellio, has unanimously decided to award the prize for the “Near Horizons” section, to the film:

Bambini di Frontiera

Manu Gerosa

Italy / 2024 / 54' / Italian premiere

The silent protagonist of the documentary film is the Istituto De Gasperi on Monte Bondone, a special college for “temporary orphans"", which from 1957 to 1996 housed the children of Italian workers who had emigrated to Germany. With the sensitivity typical of the director, interviews and archive footage create a frontier story made up of many different layers of experiences. The voices of the children at the time, today adult men and women, bring back to life a place that is by now abandoned and that for a while they called home.

The jury for the prize has also decided to award a special mention to the film

Stanze

by Simona Palmieri (Italy/2024/20')

MOTIVATION
Already showing a remarkable ability to construct and manage the narration, the young director, assisted by an all-female team of great sensitivity, presents a story about marginality that is transformed into a heartfelt elegy to memories and caring. The underlying reflection concerns the right to a place to call home, using an original style that skilfully exploits the editing process.

Museo etnografico trentino San Michele Award

Established by the Museo etnografico trentino San Michelefor the film best documenting the traditions and customs of mountain people with ethno-anthropological documentary accuracy.

500€

The jury, made up of Ezio Amistadi, Luca Faoro and Armando Tomasi, has awarded the prize to the film:

Velovelodico

Alessandro Anderloni

Italy / 2024 / 70' / Italian premiere

“It's no good, your home town remains the place where you grew up”: this is the emblematic opening of Velovelodico, the common thread underlying the experiences masterfully narrated through profound and intimate dialogue between Anderloni and thirteen interweaving voices to create a diaphanous fabric; a subtle fabric encompassing emotions, hopes and experiences forged by life in the mountains, comparing the past, present and future.

World Heritage Dolomites Award

Established by the  Fondazione Dolomiti UNESCO and SAT Società Alpinisti Tridentini for the best film documenting the awareness within communities of the exceptional universal values recognised by UNESCO and the ability to carry out active conservation of the area.

1000€

The jury, made up of da Mauro Pascolini, Maria Carla Failo and Massimiliano Corradini, has decided to award the prize to the film:

Contadini di Confine / Grenzbauern

Michele Trentini

Italy / 2024 / 72' / Italian premiere

The film once again proposes the theme of “resistance"" in the mountains, in this case based on a type of farming using traditional systems and with mechanisation still ""on a human scale” that makes it possible to produce a prestigious cheese such as “Trentingrana”, thanks to the wealth of mountain pastures. The choice of interviews, almost always involving couples, is commendable. Lastly, the concept of a boundary that exists politically but not in people's minds should be underlined.

The jury for the prize has also decided to award a special mention to the film

Bergfahrt

by Dominique Margot (Swiss/2023/97')

MOTIVATION
An interesting key to interpreting the mountains through a series of figures (a mountaineer, a shepherd, a geologist, a poet etc.) who present their own individual approaches to the mountains and the future of the mountain environment in the face of the changes underway, particularly climate change but also domestication of the environment.

Cinema for Human Rights Award

The "Cinema for Human Rights Prize" is a joint initiative of the Fondazione Campana dei Caduti and the Forum Trentino per la Pace e i Diritti Umani, with the scope of promoting the work that best communicates the underlying values of the two institutions and that raises public awareness about issues related to human rights, peace, sustainability, and awareness and dialogue between peoples and cultures.

1000€

The jury, made up of Marco Marsilli, Katia Malatesta, Morena Berti and Riccardo Santoni, has decided to award the prize to the film

Mrs. Iran's Husband

Marjan Khosravi Baledi

Iran / 2023 / 27' / Italian premiere

For its ability to deal with the subject of gender discrimination with toughness, but honesty and correctness, in a society still marked by patriarchal features, exploring the complexity of a reality too often simplified by our media. For its intelligence in dealing with the cultural changes underway in Iran with sensitivity, through language and scenography. For the sense of hope it transmits, highlighting the different attitudes characterising two women belonging to different generations.

Amelia de Eccher Award - For women active in Film and Mountains

In memory of Amelia de Eccher, for women on both sides of the camera.

1000€

The jury, made up of Elena Goatelli, Ingrid Runggaldier and Linda Cottino, has awarded the prize to the film

Postcards from the Verge

Natalia Koniarz

Poland / 2023 / 40' / Italian premiere

Behind the appearance of a simple bicycle adventure, the story of a young man that runs away from the pain of his parent's divorce, takes shape delicately. A trip in the past, emotionally as well as for the landscape, the protagonist takes with who he hopes will be the love of his life. The beautiful photography, along with the great narrative capacity, delicacy and balance brings the viewer in a poetic adventure, in search of self.

Green Film Award

Set up in 2021 by the Agenzia Provinciale per la Protezione dell'Ambiente and Trentino Film Commission, which since 2016 have worked together on the "Green Film" project, awarding an environmental quality label to audiovisual products demonstrating they have reduced their environmental impact (www.green.film), the prize is awarded to the film that most effectively expresses environmental protection and sustainability values and practices, with particular attention for the mountain environment and climate change.

1500€

The jury, made up of Marco Niro, Lavinia Laiti and Linnea Marzagora has awarded the prize to the film

The Ice Builders

Francesco Clerici, Tommaso Barbaro

Italy / 2024 / 15' / Italian premiere

Recounted in an effective and engaging way, it raises awareness of a specific climate adaptation strategy from below, based on the local knowledge of a mountain community that has fully understood the need to change its approach, after having experienced the consequences of the climate crisis at first hand.

A special mention goes to

Bergfahrt

by Dominique Margot (Swiss/2023/97')

MOTIVATION
An all-round exploration of the mountains, what they are, what they mean, and how we are transforming and changing them. A holistic approach based on different perspectives: scientific, artistic, philosophical and existential. Evocative and sometimes surprising images, to discover that the mountains are alive; and thus can also die.

Ritter Sport Award - Mountain emotions

Established by Ritter Sport in 2023, the award wishes to celebrate the “the thrill and joy of experiences in the mountains, in the midst of nature. The award is given to the work that best succeeds in transmitting these feelings, which only the mountain environment can provide, combining adventure, discovery and the spirit of sharing”.

500€

The jury, made up of Fabio Pasini, Marika Ciaccia, Ludovica Basso - clorophilla, Marzia Bortolameotti, Silvia e Davide, Elena Marinoni and a team of Ritter Sport Italy has assigned the award to the film

Keep it Burning

Guillaume Broust

Spain, Pakistan / 2024 / 32' / Italian premiere

The film succeeds in presenting the enthusiasm and spirit of adventure guiding Edu Marin, assisted by his brother Alex and his father Novato, in the free ascent of the Eternal Flame, on the southern spur of the “Nameless tower” in Pakistan. It is a story in which the mountaineering challenges and unfavourable weather conditions highlight a family relationship based on trust, respect and love. The amazing footage of one of the most spectacular mountain ranges in the world also contributes to making the film exciting and compelling.

"City of Imola" Award

The "City of Imola" award is assigned to the fiction or documentary film work that stands out from the others in terms of its artistic and technical quality, emphasis on the underlying values of CAI, and the originality of the issues dealt with and/or the story recounted.

1000€

The jury, made up of Tamara Lunger, Mauro Bartoli, Carlo Machirelli, Nicoletta Favaron and Giuseppe Favini, has decided to award the prize to the film

Marmolada - Madre Roccia

Matteo Maggi, Cristiana Pecci

Italy / 2024 / 76' / International premiere

The vertiginous peaks of the Marmolada's south face are the setting for the conquest of “Madre Roccia”, a route uncompleted for many years, unique and inaccessible. Four tenacious climbers and four generations, side by side, a perfect combination of technique, intuition, imagination, talent and irony. In addition to the pure and exciting sense of vertical adventure, the film also highlights the serious fragility of our natural heritage due to inexorable climate change, also thanks to the testimony of refuge managers from Val Ombretta, fundamental in protecting and preserving the history of the Queen of the Dolomites.

EUSALP Award - What keeps me here

The EUSALP macroregional strategy for the Alpine Space aims to ensure that the Alpine Space remains an attractive, innovative, competitive and green region in the heart of Europe. Attention is focused on economic growth and innovation, mobility and connectivity, along with environmental protection and energy. Employment policy in the alpine area directed at combating the abandonment of these areas by young people and the promotion of pastoralism, for which the alpine area is particularly suitable, are also issues dear to the Macroregion. In its annual programme, the Autonomous Province of Trento has focused considerably on the relationship between towns and peripheral areas in the alpine region, investing heavily in the involvement of young people. In line with the provisions of the 2023 film registration regulations, the EUSALP Prize is to be awarded to the work that has best grasped the spirit underlying the alpine Macroregion, namely issues relating to sustainability, inclusion and green technology, with particular reference to job opportunities in the alpine environment.

1500€

The jury, made up of Simone Marchiori, Mauro Casotto, Barbara Centis, Luca Ferrario and Ileana Olivo, has awarded the prize to the film

Velovelodico

Alessandro Anderloni

Italy / 2024 / 70' / Italian premiere

For its ability to highlight the meaningful and positive aspects of living in the mountains and belonging to a community, through the innovative construction of the film, also thanks to the importance of cultural initiatives and intergenerational cooperation. Velo Veronese becomes a symbol of all mountain communities, above all those outside the circuits of mass tourism, communities that in the post-covid era become of interest in terms of quality of life and opportunities for those seeking refuge from the chaos of cities. In the jury's opinion, the film has the virtue of reviving the childhood memories of those born in small alpine villages, without nostalgia, allowing those who instead grew up in cities to perceive their authenticity, with pleasure and a touch of envy.

The jury also wishes to award a special mention to

Contadini di Confine / Grenzbauern

by Michele Trentini (Italy/2024/72')

MOTIVATION
For having focused attention on a typical mountain activity that still today represents a fundamental element in the care and enhancement of the Alps. The film also underlines that policy related to the mountains must be managed at global level in order to overcome frontiers, just as shepherds have done for centuries.

T4Future Award

An award established in 2022; the jury is made up of pupils at secondary schools in Trentino, evaluating the works in the T4Future film section.

The jury, made up of Viola Emilia Chiodelli, Sharoon John, Angelica Arcese, Tommaso Ferrari and Adele Lombardo, has awarded the prize to:

Things Unheard Of

Ramazan Kiliç

Turkey / 2023 / 15'

It is a film characterised by its aesthetic appeal, balanced and pleasant for the spectator. The plot testifies to a culture that is distant from our own, yet despite this we are emotionally involved, while the whole film is marked by its fluidity and excellent pace. We were struck by the original use of the TV as an element, going from straightforward prop to become an instrument transmitting a very profound message.