Award Recipients: Jury Comments
About PrizesPrizes for the International Competition
- Jury: Thom Andersen (Chair), Nicolás Echevarría, Feng Yan, Makino Takashi
General Comment
We feel honored and humbled by the responsibility entrusted to us as jurors at this year’s YIDFF. It was a strong group of films, and we wish we could have given even more prizes. Although it will not console the filmmakers whose works were overlooked we have to say that these were no loses. We learned from these films that the distinction between non-fiction and fiction films needs to be rethought: almost all of the films shown this year put this distinction into question. However, all of them are animated by the documentary impulse, which is nothing less than the search for truth. Truth is not accuracy or objectivity. It is a virtue, an aspiration, like faith or charity. A number of recent films aspire to truth through a new intimacy or a close collaboration with the human subjects whose lives are recorded. But this development makes the film-maker’s path harder. The search for truth now demands an almost impossible patience. But, as Alain Badiou has written, the only principle of an ethics of truth is the possibility of the impossible.
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• The Robert and Frances Flaherty Prize (The Grand Prize)
Horse Money - PORTUGAL / 2014 / 104 min
Dir: Pedro Costa
Pedro Costa’s Horse Money extends his collaboration with the Capo Verdean immigrants of Fontainhas in a new, surprising direction. The certainties of his earlier films have been stripped away, and what emerges is an incantation, a prayer, a mass, a film of memories we can only partly grasp, a documentary of dreams, a documentary as dream, a ghost story some would say, but certainly a film of astonishing power whose protagonists are the true heroes of our times.
• The Mayor’s Prize
The Pearl Button- FRANCE, CHILE, SPAIN / 2015 / 82 min
Dir: Patricio Guzmán
We all come from the sea. The ocean is the origin of life and keeps our memories and secrets. Patricio Guzmán’s film The Pearl Button proposes that water not only has memory but also has a voice.
• Award of Excellence
Homeland (Iraq Year Zero)- IRAQ, FRANCE / 2015 / 334 min
Dir: Abbas Fahdel
What was depicted in the 334 minutes? We saw irreplaceable landscape and time filled with a deep (deep) kindness and sadness. Offering us a glimpse of the Iraqi land and the everyday of a family, of the changes before and after the war—something Japanese television never broadcast—the film’s worth as a documentary is ample. Yet the strongest elements of this film are director Abbas Fahdel’s loving gaze and the shining presence of children like Hydal. The children continue to live on, inside all people who have seen this film. We are so glad to have seen this film. We express our full admiration for the filmmaker and his family.
• Award of Excellence
Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait- FRANCE, SYRIA / 2014 / 92 min
Dir: Ossama Mohammed, Wiam Simav Bedirxan
Silvered Water extends the possibilities of visual expression to the fullest. In the face of appalling unbearable violence, what can cinema and the filmmaker do? This film, made at the risk of the filmmakers’ lives, provides us with an answer. Their film becomes a validation of their lives—something documentary should essentially be. We express our respect for the filmmakers’ courage and ability to take action.
• Special Prize
Us women . Them women- ARGENTINA / 2015 / 65 min
Dir: Julia Pesce
Life starts with birth and lasts with death. But this is not what necessarily happens in film. A group of women linked by blood, solidarity and love can tell us a different story.
New Asian Currents Awards
- Jury: Kawakami Koichi, Gargi Sen
General Comment
We, the jury of the New Asian Currents of the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival 2015 feel deeply privileged to have engaged with 18 extraordinary documentaries. These are fearless cinematic forays into spaces and worlds often separated by borders of nations, cultures, gender, ethnicity, time, space age and class. The filmmakers though have dared to step into spaces angels fear to go. Walking with respect, talent, cinematic capability they have created tales of extraordinary beauty and hope, often developing new cinematic language on the way. The New Asian Currents 2015 reflects that a thousand flowers have indeed bloomed.
We the jury had the difficult task of eliminating films equally deserving of the prize for we feel each one of the films is deserving. Therefore we want to assure the wonderfully talented filmmakers who will not win an award tonight that being here, being selected for the New Asian Currents itself is an honour and validation of your talent and perseverance. May your films travel far and wide and in the process connect hearts and minds with the magic-wand of cinema.
We the jury will award 7 documentaries tonight that play with space, time and language. We have decided to Specially Mention 4 documentaries.
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• Ogawa Shinsuke Prize
Standing Men - FRANCE, LEBANON / 2015 / 55 min
Dir: Maya Abdul-Malak
An orchestra composed of binary spaces—hidden and visible, private and public, masculine and vulnerable, matriarchal and exiled, city and home, time and continuum, and texts of longing—letters, coffee, cake, telephone . . . and cinema. We are honoured to Award the Ogawa Shinsuke prize to Standing Men by Maya Abdul-Malak for creating a compassionate story of exile and longing with extraordinary cinematic craft.
• Award of Excellence
Snakeskin- SINGAPORE, PORTUGAL / 2014 / 105 min
Dir: Daniel Hui
The Award of Excellence goes to a film that plays with time—it moves back and forth in imagination and memory, accentuating that memory is both imagination and power—questioning and doubting everything, even cinema, and yet creating moments of vulnerable poignancy. We are delighted to award Snakeskin by Daniel Hui for it’s courageous steps into the terrain of new cinematic language.
• Award of Excellence
Each Story- INDIA, JAPAN / 2014 / 40 min
Dir: Okuma Katsuya
With the dexterity of a football/soccer player, with very little time or cultural familiarity, with deep respect and resonating his own roots, playing with cinematic language, the filmmaker crafts a narrative; a universal prophesy: that of the inevitable loss of culture and roots in the face of globalisation and consequent climate changes in environment, both cultural and physical. We are delighted to give the Award of Excellence to Each Story by Okuma Katsuya for the stories of love he shares with the world.
• Special Mention
Glittering Hands- KOREA / 2014 / 80 min
Dir: Lee-Kil Bora
Speaking with silence where words connect worlds comes a sparkling tale of joy and love. The jury Special Mention goes to Glittering Hands by Lee-Kil Bora.
• Special Mention
A Report about Mina- IRAN / 2014 / 54 min
Dir: Kaveh Mazaheri
From the heart of a city, from amidst poverty, squalor, drugs and crime was created a tale of beauty and dignity. The jury Special Mention goes to A Report about Mina by Kaveh Mazaheri.
• Special Mention
ARAGANE- BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, JAPAN / 2015 / 68 min
Dir: Oda Kaori
A mesmerising symphony of images and sound drawn from a space: hidden underground, masculine, atavistic and mechanised. The jury Special Mention goes to ARAGANE by Oda Kaori.
• Special Mention
I Am Yet to See Delhi- BANGLADESH, INDIA / 2014 / 19 min
Dir: Humaira Bilkis
A poetic essay on loneliness in a city masterfully woven together with images of attempts to capture that same city. The jury Special Mention goes to I Am Yet to See Delhi by Humaira Bilkis.
Citizens’ Prizes
- Homeland (Iraq Year Zero)
- IRAQ, FRANCE / 2015 / 334 min
Dir: Abbas Fahdel
Directors Guild of Japan Award
- My No-Mercy Home
- KOREA / 2013 / 75 min
Dir: Aori