Tonight, the 56th edition of the Pesaro Film Festival closes down with the award ceremony presented by Miriam Galanti and followed by a live talk with Giuliano Montaldo to crown the Special Event dedicated to him. The screening of the closing film, The Entrepreneur, will follow and close the Festival.

Here are the awards:

2020 PESARO NUOVO CINEMA COMPETITION – LINO MICCICHE’ AWARD

This year, the Pesaro Nuovo Cinema Competition has exceptionally opened to works of all genres and formats made by first-time directors or well-known film-makers, for a total of 18 films in competition. The Jury, composed of Swiss cinematographer Renato Berta, Italian actor and director Vinicio Marchioni, and Italian artist and animator Virgilio Villoresi, gave the Lino Miccichè Award for best film in competition to:

The Metamorphosis of Birds by Catarina Vasconcelos (Portugal, 2020, 111’)

The feature film, directed by Portuguese film-maker Catarina Vasconcelos, who made her debut in feature directing with this work, is a reflection on loss and absence – namely, of two mothers – in which poetic speech flows without a direct connection to the images, strongly reminiscent of painting. According to the motivation expressed by the jury,

“[We] decided to award the authenticity with which the film director told the story of a family by treating the shots as paintings moving in time. Thanks to its effective storytelling and painstaking aesthetics, the film leads the audience into a poetic and moving visual journey.”

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JURY OF STUDENTS AWARD

A Jury of Students coordinated by Pierpaolo De Sanctis and made up of twenty young critics from various Italian universities and film schools was gathered to present its award to one of the Competition films. According the Jury of Students, the winner is:

The Metamorphosis of Birds by Catarina Vasconcelos  (Portugal, 2020, 111’)

With the following motivation:

“For managing to crystallize both family memories and a nation’s history in a single poetic tableau rich in painterly and literary suggestions. For the original use of cinematic framing, the result of a lyrical and powerful gaze that evokes heterogeneous emotions, feelings, and imaginaries.”

The Jury of Students also decided to assign a Special Mention to:

There Will Be No More Night by Eléonore Weber (France, 2020, 76’)

The second film directed by French film-maker Eléonore Weber is a work blended between documentary and video art that uses the images shot by the thermal cameras of military aircrafts in war zones to elaborate a powerful reflection on the ethics of the image and the role of the gaze in film (and in reality). The film is awarded with the Special Mention with the following motivation:

“For its effective critic processing of war footage that is organized into a rigorous and unrelenting formal system. For its non-conventional reflection on the disturbing nature of images, that manages to awaken the viewers’ consciousness by way of an involvement that is both ethical and emotional.”

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CINEMA IN THE SQUARE AWARD

For a few years now, the Pesaro Film Festival has organized late-hour screenings in the Piazza del Popolo. Viewers are invited to vote for best film in the section Cinema in the Square. Because of health-related measures, this year the audience could not express their vote through the classic paper-based system, but we decided to go nonetheless forward by awarding the most successful film among those screened in the Piazza. Therefore, we adopted a possibly scarcely scientific method, but an easily recognizable one, i.e., the viewers’ applauses. That being said, the winner of the Cinema in the Square Award is:

IL CASO BRAIBANTI by Carmen Giardina and Massimiliano Palmese (Italy, 2020, 60’)

This film does justice to an inexcusably forgotten Italian intellectual such as Aldo Braibanti and, above all, brings to the public attention one of the most sensational and outrageous trials in the history of the Italian republic. By way of interviews, archival images, and re-enactments, it sends out a cry against homophobia and cultural repression, which resonated strongly in the hearts of the spectators.

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(Re)Edit Competition

The (Re)Edit  Competition is the first one in Italy reserved for video essays, the new form of film criticism in pictures that can not only become viral on the Internet but is also used as an education tool in the most advanced universities. For its sixth edition, the curators Chiara Grizzaffi and Andrea Minuz shortlisted six video essays/re-cuts/mash-ups/remixes made by students from universities and film schools from all over the world. From among these, the jury composed of Rocco Moccagatta, Arianna Lodeserto, and Cristiana Paternò chose the winner:

SAFE BODIES, SAFE ENVIRONMENT: THE ATMOSPHERE OF TODD HAYNES’ SAFE by Kelsey Draper (Liverpool John Moores University)

With the following motivation:

“It conducts the analysis of one film, Todd Haynes’ Safe, from the formal and compositional point of view, comparing it with the film director’s thought and the atmosphere that characterized the Eighties during the spread of AIDS. It is a detailed and scrupulous but also impassioned study that establishes a dialogue with our times: through the comparison with the toxic narrative of AIDS and the subtle management of the masses adopted not so long ago, the video essay reflects on the utopia of total safety and immunity at all (personal and collective) costs.”

The Jury also assigned a Special Mention to:

A TOUCH SCREEN VIDEOESSAY by Erica Nobis (Università Cattolica)

With the following motivation:

“Inventory/encyclopaedia of a motif (touching) which also creates a dialogue with our present in a moving, original way, reevoking the beauty of a gesture that we really miss.”

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LINO MICCICHÈ AWARD FOR YOUNG FILM CRITICS

Already announced over the past few days, tonight the winners of the Lino Miccichè Award for young film critics will receive their prizes. The competition is organized by the Italian Film Critics National Union – Group Emilia Romagna Marche along with the Pesaro Film Festival itself.

The Award is named after Lino Miccichè (founder of the Pesaro Film Festival along with Bruno Torri). Its goal is to bring young journalists closer both to the critical work in the field of cinema and to the activities of research that the Festival has been carrying out on an international level over all these years. The Jury, composed of Pedro Armocida, Luisa Ceretto, Andrea Miccichè, Francesco Miccichè, Franco Montini, Paola Olivieri, and Bruno Torri, decreed the following winners:

SECTION A AWARDS (high school students):

1st prize ASIA CARRINO (€150 + certificate)

2nd prize ALEJANDO CADELAGO (€100 + prize)

3rd prize PAOLA DE PASQUALE (1-year subscription to the magazine Cinecritica + certificate)

SECTION B AWARDS (university students):

1st prize SILVIA CARAMELLINO (€250 + certificate)

2nd prize ANDREA BORNETO (€200 + certificate)

3rd prize ELVIRA DEL GUERCIO (1-year subscription to the magazine Cinecritica + certificate)