Over 3000 tickets sold and 5,000 total attendances in all events, in five very dense days, with so many sold-out events, 300 guests from Italy and all around world, 28 countries represented in 25 national preview films and three world premieres: is the balance of the 16th edition of the Pordenone Docs Fest, the Cinemazero event which this year has transformed the city into the “documentary capital” in Italy, attracting the attention of professionals, the most important national media and public. The festival becomes a point of reference at a national and international level, an opportunity to read reality with different eyes. All in the welcoming dimension of the city of Pordenone, highly appreciated especially by foreign guests.
The Grand Jury Prize went to the splendid “Moosa Lane” by Anita Mathal Hopland, with the following motivation: «Life and images meet in a ten-year project where the family events of a young woman find space: the question of origins, of the fragile and sometimes contradictory identity of stateless people, refugees and second generations of migratory flows. A mirror of the present in which controversies and traits of union between different and distant cultures are reflected. A shining example of cinema in its making, open, free, epiphanic.” The three jurors presented the prize: the great Chilean director Valeria Sarmiento, the director and screenwriter Costanza Quatriglio and the journalist and film critic Beatrice Fiorentino. A special mention went to “When spring came to Bucha” by Mila Teshaieva and Marcus Lenz: «A war reportage that delves into the drama of the conflict in Ukraine, avoiding rhetoric and the display of pain, instead seeking a profound sense of community , in the dignity of the civilian population and in small daily actions, the noblest center of the resistance.”
The Green Documentary Award, for the best film with an ecological theme, went to “The Oil Machine” by Emma Davie, for its ability to convey the complexity of the climate crisis by giving voice to scientists, experts, economists and activists without forgetting the point of view of oil companies and workers who fear losing their jobs. It is a film that opens up dialogue and discussion on an epochal issue, on which the future of us human beings on the planet depends.
The winner of the Young Audience Award, voted by the Cinemazero Young club and the sixty film students from all over Italy and abroad, accredited at the festival, was “Singing on the rooftops” by Eric Ribes Reig, because «it tells different aspects of inclusivity, showing that care and love can overcome every barrier: age, sexuality, origins. It demonstrates that it is possible to generate a bond that unites multiple generations, and it does so through a delicate, sincere and emotional portrait.”
“The art of silence“, by the Swiss director Maurizius Staerkle Drux, the first documentary on the life of the legendary artist and mime Marcel Marceau, presented on the opening night in collaboration with the National Deaf Organization of Pordenone, won the Audience Award.
The Virtual Reality Award went to “Myriad” by Michael Grotenhoff and Christian Zipfel, the story of the incredible migrations of Northern Bald Ibises, reintroduced into nature when they were thought to be extinct: this was the title most appreciated by those who visited the space dedicated to reality virtual in Piazzetta Cavour.
The Critics’ Award, in collaboration with the Association of Italian Film Festivals and the National Union of Italian Film Critics, went to “Steel life” by Manuel Bauer «for its masterful storytelling ability and the precision of the analysis of the socio-economic context economy of a country exploited by the capitalist system”.
