The Youth Jury awards “For Your Sake” IN NEPAL, TWO STUDENTS BETWEEN TRADITION AND GLOBAL FLOWS.
WORKING TITLE FILM FESTIVAL – the 5th Edition’s final
Fifteen university students, recent graduates and European cinema enthusiasts met remotely, with the support of Erasmus + Virtual Exchange, choosing the best works in competition that deal with the themes of the work of children, adolescents and young people. Special mentions to Takashi Nishihara’s “Sisterhood” and Louisiana Mees Fongang’s “Waithood”.
The fifth edition of Working Title Film Festival ended on Thursday 15 October, which was held entirely online. The last act of the festival are the choices of the Youth Jury, made up of 15 university students, recent graduates and young European cinema enthusiasts, who met remotely. The project was carried out by WTFF in collaboration with Erasmus + Virtual Exchange and included several web meetings, with the technical and logistical support and the facilitation of Lorenza Bacino (UNIcollaboraton). Riccardo Bertoia, Daniela Bongiorno, Alice Bordignon, Carlotta Canovi, Elisa Chiari, Girolamo da Schio, Chiara Faggionato, Juan Francisco González, Regina Khanipova, Lorenzo Lamberti, Silvia Mazzei, Pedro Montesinos, Valerio Picca, Alessio Rosa were part of the Young Jury. Michele Sammarco.
After evaluating 11 films in competition that address the issues of work from the point of view of young people, children and adolescents, the Youth Jury awarded the Special Youth Jury Prize to “For Your Sake”, a documentary short film by German director Ronja Hemm , whose protagonists are two young Nepalese who, before moving to Japan to study, spend a few days in the family home, in the mountains of Nepal, confronting their mother and grandmother.
Two special mentions were also awarded. The first in “Sisterhood”, a hybrid feature film between fiction and documentary by Japanese Takashi Nishihara whose protagonist, a director who is making a film about feminism, interviews young women and stages their fragmented lives: among them a rock singer , a photographer, a nude model.
The second to “Waithood” by Belgian director Louisiana Mees Fongang, a fictional short film set in Athens, which stars five boys looking for fun in the luxurious Airbnb apartment that one of them cleans in exchange for a paltry pay.
The European dimension of the festival was also established with the conference “Working Europe. New trends in cinema at work “, which took place online on 7 October with the organizers of four European festivals born in recent years, similar in terms of sensitivity and themes: Itxaso Diaz, artistic director of LAN Festival audiovisual obrero in Bilbao (Spain), Talat Bhat, artistic director of Arbetar Film Festivalen – Nordic Labor Film Festival in Malmö (Sweden), Maite Peltier, artistic director of Filmer le travail in Poitiers (France), and Marina Resta, artistic director of Working Title Film Festival.
Working Title Film Festival 5 presented to a global audience, on an online platform from 1 to 15 October, 59 films in competition, with 40 countries represented, 7 world premieres, 4 European and 23 Italian, 20 works directed by women and 14 first works.
On Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 October, the awards ceremony for the four competition sections was announced live on social networks: the feature films jury (Gaia Formenti and Pierfrancesco Li Donni) awarded “En busca del Óscar” by Octavio Guerra Quevedo (Spain) as best film and awarded two special mentions to “Malacqua” by Giuseppe Crudele (Italy) + “Sisterhood” by Takashi Nishihara (Japan).
The short films (Francesca Bertin and Thanos Psichogios) awarded “For Your Sake” by Ronja as best film Hemm (Germany) and awarded two special mentions to Lorand Gabor’s “Cum inalti un zmeu?” (Romania) and Gabriel Amaral’s “Lugar algum” (Brazil).
The short films jury (Hannah Weissenborn and Sorayos Prapapan) awarded as best film “Of Not Such Great Importance” by Benjamin Deboosere (Belgium) and awarded a special mention to “Ashmina” by Dekel Berenson (Israel).
The Extraworks jury (Maite Abella and Perla Sardella) awarded “Waiting Working Hours” by Ben De Raes (Belgium) and a special mention was given to “Var-hami” by Ilaria Pezone (Italy).
The festival is promoted by the association Laboratory of economic and social investigation – LIES, with the contribution of the Monte di Pietà Foundation of Vicenza, Cgil, Cisl and Uil Vicenza, the patronage of the Veneto Region and the Municipality of Vicenza and the technical partnership of the High School of Linguistic Mediators Vicenza – FUSP.
THE REASONS
Special Young Jury Award: “For Your Sake”
by Ronja Hemm (Germany, 2019, 38 ‘)
The documentary film, set in Nepal, tells three generations of Tamang women with an intimate and direct gaze. The mother and grandmother continue to live in the rural village and carry out traditional jobs related to nature; the teenage daughters are studying in the city and are in the process of moving to Japan to aspire to a higher level of education. The film was awarded for its great photographic quality, for a present but non-invasive direction and for the ability to express a sense of nostalgia and affection linked to Nepalese culture, in a dialectical perspective with respect to the speed with which humanity moves from a point to the other of the globalized world.
Special Mention Youth Jury 1: “Sisterhood”
by Takashi Nishihara (Japan, 2019, 87 ‘)
For his exploration of the process of making art and at the same time of living, hybridizing the documentary genre and fiction; for the compositional care in black and white photography, which makes the film lyrical. The film reflects on gender equality in Japanese society and through the film’s metacinematographic device in the film gives a voice to young women who work in artistic and cultural fields, who find themselves in a relationship with a young director, the author’s alter ego.
Special Mention Young Jury 2: “Waithood”
by Louisiana Mees Fongang (Belgium, Greece, 2019, 22 ‘)
For the ability to fully express the feeling of emptiness and suspension that young Europeans can feel in contemporary capitalist society, and for having highlighted the fine line that can divide beauty and ruin in a country like Greece. The Hellenic capital, which expresses a strong contrast between the remains of its glorious past and the heavy legacy of the recent financial crisis, itself becomes a character in waiting, as are the protagonists of the film, who look with love at the panorama of the ancient Athens, but they dream of Berlin.
33 MAGAZINE 