Camden Worldwide Movie Competition Awards Prizes For nineteenth Version – Deadline

A primary-time filmmaker has claimed the highest prize on the 19^th Annual Camden Movie Competition in Maine, one of many nation’s foremost all-documentary festivals.

Director Yousef Srouji earned the Harrell Award for Three Promises, a movie set within the Occupied Territories. “Initially of the 2000s, the Israeli military retaliated in opposition to the second intifada within the West Financial institution,” notes an outline of the documentary. “All of the whereas, Suha, a mom of two younger youngsters, decides it’s time to begin a movie diary. Years later, her youngest son Yousef picks up the archive and discovers the tough decisions she confronted then. The three guarantees, made and damaged, proof the sturdy love of a mom to her youngsters, to her land, and to herself. The result’s a reflexive act of affection in a time capsule.”

The Harrell Prize jury stated in an announcement, “For the principle prize, we determined to award a movie through which the director manages to attract the viewers in and share the sensation like they’re trapped with the household on display screen, not figuring out what’s to come back. A movie that could be a testomony to a mom’s love for her household and her land, and the unattainable choices she has to make. A movie about remembering.”

Three Guarantees marks Srouji’s directorial debut, however he’s described within the Camden program as a “longtime storyteller. His work facilities round understanding the dynamics of occupation in Palestine, and group resilience in battle zones.”

A Particular Point out was awarded to Or de Vie/A Golden Life, directed by Boubacar Sangaré, a movie the jury referred to as “a extremely cinematic documentary which introduces us to an important character, whom we observe throughout his days and see him converse together with his colleagues about life and goals. The director manages to get near the protagonists with a gaze that by no means feels voyeuristic.”

The Viewers Award went to Queendom, directed by Agniia Galdanova, the story of Gena, a drag efficiency artist in distant Siberia who bravely defies Russia’s more and more hostile legal guidelines directed in opposition to the LGBTQ group. Again in March, Deadline shared the first clip of the documentary with you throughout the SXSW Movie Competition, the place Queendom premiered.

“Within the means of changing into who you might be, it’s generally unattainable to search out the best language,” Camden stated in asserting the Viewers Award winner. “On this portrait of an artist coming of age, Gena makes use of her creativity to search out the language – verbal, visible, and emotional – to struggle for liberation. By a seamless mix of observational and performative filmmaking methods, director Agniia Galdanova shares a view into this means of self-articulation.”

Taking residence CIFF’s Cinematic Imaginative and prescient Award was Knit’s Island, directed by Ekiem Barbier, Guilhem Causse, and Quentin L’helgoualc’h. 

“Not solely does Knit’s Island push the boundaries of what we perceive as cinema, it additionally presents a profound meditation on the ethics of ethnography and bearing witness to violence,” the Cinematic Imaginative and prescient jury stated. “Whereas the movie performs with kind, it additionally retains a positive eye on the story it units out to inform, and tells a story that’s tight and complete.”

The Cinematic Imaginative and prescient jury awarded a Particular Point out to Within the Shadow of Mild, directed by Isabel Reyes and Ignacia Merino, “for its visionary use of the fundamental parts of cinema and life–mild and sound—to light up their unequal distribution in society.”

The in-person portion of the Camden Worldwide Movie Competition ran from Sept. 14-18. The net portion continues for the following week.