GOLDEN GENTIAN TO LA GRAND-MESSE: THE SENSE OF COMMUNITY WINS OVER TRENTO FILM FESTIVAL
Published 08/05/2019
Official Prizes – 67. Trento Film Festival
The 67. Trento Film Festival’s Jury – composed of Charlène Dinhut (France), Ed Douglas (Great Britain), Arūnas Matelis (Lithuania), Eliane Raheb (Lebanon), Giulio Sangiorgio (Italy) – gave the following official prizes:
GRAND PRIX “CITY OF TRENTO”
GOLDEN GENTIAN FOR THE BEST FILM
La Grand-Messe
Méryl Fortunat-Rossi and Valéry Rosier (Belgium/France, 2018, 70’)
CLUB ALPINO ITALIANO PRIZE
GOLDEN GENTIAN FOR THE BEST FILM ON MOUNTAINEERING,
MOUNTAIN PEOPLE AND LIFE IN MOUNTAINS
Francesco Fei (Italy, 2018, 80’)
“CITY OF BOLZANO” PRIZE
GOLDEN GENTIAN FOR THE BEST FILM ON EXPLORATION OR ADVENTURE
Bruder Jakob, schläfst du noch?
Stefan Bohun (Austria, 2018, 80’)
BEST ARTISTIC-TECHNICAL CONTRIBUTION
Riafn
Hannes Lang (Germany, 2019, 30’)
SILVER GENTIAN
BEST SHORT FILM
Stations
Julien Huger (France, 2018, 23’)
The Border Fence
Nikolaus Geyrhalter (Austria, 2018, 112’)
JURY SPECIAL MENTION
Beloved
Yaser Talebi (Iran, 2018, 61’)
Official Prizes – Motivations and synopsis
GRAND PRIX “CITY OF TRENTO”
GOLDEN GENTIAN FOR THE BEST FILM
La Grand-Messe, Méryl Fortunat-Rossi and Valéry Rosier (Belgium/France, 2018, 70’)
MOTIVATIONS – A cleverly paced enquiry into identity, nationalism, ageing and loss through the dedicated fanaticism a group of cycling fans from all over France share for one of the most famous Alpine stages in the most famous bike race all: the Tour de France. As race day approaches, filmmakers Méryl Fortunat-Rossi and Valéry Rosier unravel the lives of an older generation looking back on what they, and France, have become.
SYNOPSIS – A film about the fans who come to cheer the Tour de France race, a film about modern-day pilgrims, a film about the hairpin bends of the legendary Izoard pass, a film about RVs that stake their spots two weeks ahead of time, a film about the passing of time perched between the road and the cliff, a film about summertime and a new daily routine, a film about our need to belong.
CLUB ALPINO ITALIANO PRIZE
GOLDEN GENTIAN FOR THE BEST FILM ON MOUNTAINEERING, MOUNTAIN PEOPLE AND LIFE IN MOUNTAINS
La regina di Casetta, Francesco Fei (Italy, 2018, 80’)
MOTIVATIONS – The jury wants to salute the filmmaker’s sensitivity in making the audience discover the intimate life of the teenager Gregoria who’s growing up in the mountains by following her throughout a year and highlighting the challenges she faces to be able to stay in her beautiful village that she considers the most beautiful place in the world, surrounded by nature. At once poetic and contemplative, La regina di Casetta also carries with it a message of resistance for all those communities wanting to remain in the mountains.
SYNOPSIS – Gregoria is the only girl left in Casetta di Tiara, a remote village in the Upper Mugello, inhabited by eleven people, including eight pensioners. But she won’t be there for long: in September 2018 she will have to move to the valley to attend high school, and that moment will mark the end of the film. The story begins twelve months earlier, at the start of school, and tells a year in her company. The passage of seasons, in this remote part of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, with its natural rituals, the collection of chestnuts, wild boar hunting and snow in winter, accompanies the days of Gregoria, those of her parents and fellow countrymen.
“CITY OF BOLZANO” PRIZE
GOLDEN GENTIAN FOR THE BEST FILM ON EXPLORATION OR ADVENTURE
Bruder Jakob, schläfst du noch?, Stefan Bohun (Austria, 2018, 80’)
MOTIVATIONS – This heartbreaking film is very much about exploration, as four brothers who grew up together in the mountains of Tyrol struggle to understand and come to terms with their fifth brother’s suicide. The film’s director Stefan Bohun is one of them. Moving through time, as they review childhood videos and talk over their experiences, and space as they travel to their brother’s new city far from the mountains, all four explore their relationships with Jacob and each other before returning to the mountain they climbed as boys.
SYNOPSIS – Four brothers on a journey back to the past, that begins after the death of the fifth brother, in a personal film about mourning and parting. Bruder Jakob, schläfst du noch? is a very considerate, personal film about both farewell and reunion. The scattered archival footage, showing the brothers as children and teens – on mountain tops in summer, swimming together, wildly dancing and playing – impart an unforeseen levity. The search starts in the Tyrolean valley Lareintal and eventually ends in a hotel room in Porto, with the realisation that this is not particularly a film about sadness but the necessity of grief. And about finding those who accompany us in life.
SILVER GENTIAN FOR BEST ARTISTIC-TECHNICAL CONTRIBUTION
Riafn, Hannes Lang (Germany, 2019, 30’)
MOTIVATIONS – The award for this category goes to Riafn, directed by Hannes Lang, a beautifully paced record of the songs, calls and commands shepherds use in the mountains to communicate with each other and their animals. Thanks to the subject matter, the soundtrack on this film was inevitably critical, and both recording and editing were outstanding, contributing hugely to the film’s success, creating the overall impression of an impromptu concert of the mountains.
SYNOPSIS – Riafn is a cinematic journey into the soundscape of the Alps. Idiom, song, as well as calls and commands of shepherds are condensed to create a musical film between artistic ideal and documentarian realism.
SILVER GENTIAN FOR THE BEST SHORT FILM
Stations, Julien Huger (France, 2018, 23’)
MOTIVATIONS – For its astonishing images, and for its very original artistic concept that transforms winter station activities into abstractions, sensations and emotions, showing them as vain attempts by humans to domesticate the almost supernatural mountains. Through its refined and intense use of images and music, as the film ends the mountains become a doorway for humanity to connect to the cosmos.
SYNOPSIS – The Alps in winter. Men and machines gave themselves to strange ballets to shape the mountain. The territory resists and fold up real and imaginary.
JURY PRIZE
The Border Fence, Nikolaus Geyrhalter (Austria, 2018, 112’)
MOTIVATIONS – It is a documentary offering an accurate examination of the present day; a forum comparing opinions, that gives a voice to citizens, observing them at work, constructing a possible people and listening to a discordant choir of words and impressions on the subject of migrants. It is a major political film, complex and contradictory, in contrast to the simplistic political discourse broadcast by the media.
SYNOPSIS – Spring 2016: the Austrian government announces the construction of a border fence at the Brenner Pass, expecting a shift of the refugee routes to Italy after the Balkan route is closed. Two years later, the fence is still rolled up in a container, as the inrush of refugees never occurred. In concentric circles starting from the driveable border of the Brenner, the film measures the surroundings that were the scene of a shift in inner-European policy. At the same time, the space describes itself through Geyrhalter’s typical extremely precise long shots, and in extended talks with police officers, locals, hikers, farmers, innkeepers, and toll collectors. What arises in an extremely small space is the full diversity of voices expressing individual political attitudes on a topic that affects Europe.
JURY SPECIAL MENTION
Beloved, Yaser Talebi (Iran, 2018, 61’)
MOTIVATIONS – The jury would also like to give a special mention for the documentary Beloved to salute the filmmaker for portraying the courage of an 80-year-old woman who lives alone in the Turkish mountains and struggles to survive with her cows to which she is attached like her children. While her real children do not visit her, she still supports them in her hard work and plans her legacy around them. Through filming her life on the mountain in various seasons, the filmmaker offers an honest portrayal of a mother’s courage.
SYNOPSIS – A documentary about the real life of a 80 year old woman who lives alone in the nature with her cows, however she’s strongly fond of it. It narrates the story of a kind and lover mother who is brave and strong enough to tackle the hardship of rough years of her life but never quits the mother of nature and her beloved. Despite having masculine and tough life style, she is trying to make it poetic.
