WINNERS
16th Edition September 4 - September 8, 2019And the Winner Is…

Best Film
ALLAHU AKBAR
Directed by Farhat Qazi & Farhan Alam | Pakistan 2019
For the ability with which she tells us about the strength of women who do not yield to the destiny chosen for them by the prevailing culture, but fight for their daughters and for themselves, to affirm the right to education, the freedom to choose if and who marry, to experience childhood and adolescence, as, everywhere, every young woman has the right to choose. The certainty is that “whoever is afraid dies every day and whoever is not afraid dies only once” and survives forever.

Best Actress
FARIBA TALEBI for the Film “HE WENT” Directed by Mehdi Esmaeili | Iran 2019
For the ability of mimicry that makes non-verbal language an unequivocal and excellent tool and that indicates how art can challenge any prison, allowing us to fly high but stay with our feet on the ground.

Best Actor
LAU’RIE ROACH for the Film “THE WORLD ALONE“
Directed by Jordan Noel | USA 2018
For the way in which disability, in the role of the leading actor, is not only masterful but emblematic of what in today’s society, but not only, being lame, carrying around a non-trandy skin color and serving the chrism of the sin of one’s own adulterous mother could seek, in the escape, the only possible solution and discovers that we can all make mistakes but everyone can be granted a new opportunity in the life that we really want.

Best SOUNDTRACK
CELESTEDirected by Ben Hackworth | Australia 2019
Soundtrack by Jackson Milas & Antony Partos
Because even illness and death, in this way of conceiving the inevitable and necessary consonances, become an opportunity to come to terms with one’s own truth and make peace with one’s fear, with the censorships and silences that often ensue and choose to approach the obligatory passage for everyone with as much dignity as possible, having the grace of being listened to by those you love and to find in the sounds of nature the ideal lullaby for the longest dream.

Best Cinematography
“MOUNTAINS, SUN AND LOVE” Directed by Michael Poghosyanl | Armenia 2019
Cinematography by Ruben Gasparyan
For the ability to show us how the image, by returning to man his paradise of nature, is capable of healing the wounds of the heart and sowing life by erasing every nightmare from the past.

Best Documentary
DANCE OF LIFE Directed by Peyman Zandi | Iran 2019
For the ability to demonstrate that the great beauty of our planet overwhelms the political upheavals and the prevarications of man, imposing itself despite frequent havoc and transforming the landscapes brutalized by violence, sloth and forgetfulness, to give man back his paradise.

Best Short | Women in Cinema
LIGHTING Directed by Cristina Isoli | UK 2018
For the ability with which it demonstrates how women use not only their hearing to communicate. But they are conductors of vibrations especially when love touches their heart. Because the music, which the ears cannot hear, vibrates beyond the eardrum and, through the circuits of inventive initiative of a man in love, reaches directly to the heart muscle.

Best International Short
ANACRONTE Directed by Raúl Koler | Argentina 2019
For the ability with which he takes us into a dream that is not only the chromatic and technical one but which embodies hope. In fact, everyone is saved by reacting to the darts of life fired by fate in different ways. Some succumb, landed by unexpected events or pains, while others choose to make their dreams come true by transforming difficulties into a resource and to give life and the future a new opportunity.

Best Music Video
THE THINGS WERE BETTER BIFORE Directed by Lu Pulici | Italia 2018
For the ability to demonstrate how myths, fairy tales and cunti are the ideal terrain, not only for children, but also for the child who is inside us. They are able, thanks to a specific technical mastery, to tell dense and touching stories, deserving not only the applause but also the support.

Special Jury Prize
CLEAN HANDS Directed by Michael Dominic USA 2018 | 98′
Filmed over the course of seven years (2011-2018) in Nicaragua, Clean Hands is a feature film that tells the extraordinary and compelling story of the Lopez family who survived against the backdrop of Central America’s largest garbage dump, La Chureca. It tells about the family, the extreme poverty, the hope and innocence of children, the rescue and salvation and the challenges we all face. A slice of life that is rarely seen.