AWARDS OF THE 38TH LGBT FILM FESTIVAL
The 38th LGBT Film Festival closed tonight at the Slovenian Cinematheque, where the audience had the opportunity to see 25 feature films, 27 documentaries and 27 short films. The opening screening awarded the prize for the best Slovenian short film, and the closing screening was followed by the awarding of the Pink Dragon award, as voted by the audience and the jury.
Iztok Klančar, who makes experimental films and teaches at the Royal Academy of Art and Design in The Hague; Sina Früh, artistic director of Switzerland's largest film festival Pink Apple; and Uroš Goričan, a creative in the fields of TV, film, content for mobile and web platforms and advertising. The selection was made among feature films.
This year's winner of the Jury's Pink Dragon Award is Gustavo Vinagre's Three Tidy Tigers Tied a Tie Tighter (Três Tigres Tristes).
This is what the jury said:
After carefully viewing and deliberating, all members of the jury agreed that one film particularly stood out in its storytelling and its message.
The LGBTQ+ community has always challenged the norms of society. The same goes for artists who challenge the norms in art. The people who brought to life Três Tigres Tristes manage, in addition to this, to challenge the queer community and the boxes we still put ourselves in.
Três Tigres Tristes leaves behind categories and creates a new sense of unison. We follow the individuals and witness them forming spontaneous temporary communities. In an atmosphere of lurking adversity, the characters react to the political reality thrown at them. They are in fact activists, simply by living, by being. The film functions through fluidity, also in terms of characters and storytelling. Although the script gives us an impression of linearity, it functions like our mind, jumping from place to place, story to story.
Yet, the audience is never lost but is taken along in this kaleidoscope of impressions. The film forms a coherent picture, a cosy bubble for us to relate to. Três Tigres Tristes shows us a queer community that is beyond asking for acceptance. We can be an integral part of our society by simply being ourselves.
The film invites us not only to create a new future, but to redefine our present. Our times are fluid, our times are non-binary, our times are queer!
The public also judged all the feature films during the festival and awarded the highest marks to the documentary Nelly & Nadine, winner of the Audience Choice Award for The Pink Dragon.
The film is an incredible love story of two women who fall in love on Christmas Eve 1944 in Ravensbrück concentration camp. Although separated during the last months of the war, they meet again and live together for the rest of their lives. Their love was a secret for many years, even to the closest family, but then Nelly's granddaughter Sylvie decided to open Nelly and Nadine's personal archive and reveal their extraordinary story.
The jury of selectors decided to award the Best Slovenian Short Film prize to the artistic duo The Witch Twins (Robi and Alen Predanič) for their film Daisy Bed.