The 48th edition of Laceno d’Oro International Film Festival in Avellino came to an end with the award ceremony.
The film “Zinzindurrunkarratz” by Oskar Alegria won the “Laceno d’Oro 48” Award, under the judgment of the jury composed of Charlotte Serrand, director and artistic director of the International Film Festival of La Roche-sur-Yon, film critic Daniele Dottorini, and director Alessandro Comodin. The film, which receives a prize amounting to euro 3000, represents “a return to the phantasmagoria of the origins of cinema. An enchanting, original, and moving vision, woven with the simplest and most rudimentary tools. An epic journey, full of irony and tenderness.”
The special award “Laceno d’Oro Doc” goes to “Facing Darkness” by Jean-Gabriel Périot, “a film that reminds us of how inexhaustible an archive could be and how urgent the need for a direct testimony of those who created it to survive the horror. For its straightforward, simple, uncompromising way of echoing in the present the images of the Siege of Sarajevo and making them universal. A warning for our future.”
The “Occhi sulla città” Award is assigned to “The Secret Garden” by Nour Ouayda, earning a prize of Euro 1500, by the following jury: director Gianluca Matarrese, artistic director of the Sicilia Queer Filmfest Andrea Inzerillo, and director Salka Tiziana. The reason? “For how it narrates what escapes our ordinary attention and for the ability to transform a city into an enchanted place, where the invisible becomes visible and the unheard finds a voice”.
A special mention goes to “Aqueronte” by Manuel Muñoz Rivas, which, “with a refined sense of staging, constructs a meeting space where individual lives create a temporary community, ferrying the viewer on a suspended journey through time and space.
“Summer Within” by Summer Minerva and Adam Golub is awarded the Laceno d’Oro Spazio Campania “Chiara Rigione” Award, presented by film critic Domenico Saracino, programmer and director Adelaide De Fino, and director Elio Di Pace. The film, which receives a prize of Euro 1000, stands out for its “composite language, blending digital documentary and analog memory, dream, and hope, creating in the viewer a fruitful disorientation that culminates in the poetic ending.”
The same film also wins the Red Couch Award for distribution, presented by the independent distribution company Red Couch Production. “For the sensitivity of a narrative that starts from the past to assert itself in the here and now. In search of one’s origins and a place to finally call home. A personal story destined to become universal that seeks to break down the boundaries in which everyone risks feeling confined.”
Back to the Campania Section, a Special Mention from the Jury for “Spazio Campania” in 2023 goes to “Sognando Venezia” by Elisabetta Giannini. “Applying the typical stylistic elements of influencer communication to its form, ‘Sognando Venezia’ represents a playful warning about the narcissistic and self-celebratory drift of the very young generations and bids farewell to the viewer with an unsettling sense of emptiness.”
The Supercinema Award, recognizing excellence in the field of Cinema Design, is awarded to “Neighbour Abdi” by Douwe Dijkstra. “For the interesting use of props and green screen dominating the scene, with its continuous shifts between meta-cinematic storytelling and reality. The content and stylistic levels are consistently held together by the narrative, as well as the final product and its ‘making of.’ Conventional and familiar cinematic tools are employed innovatively, generating an interesting and captivating product.”
The People’s Jury Award “Laceno d’Oro 48” goes to “Segnali di Vita” by Leandro Picarella, with the following reasons: “In the village of Lignan, under the shadow of an astronomical observatory telescope, a researcher magnifies the dynamics of the stars and the human dynamics of the small village. The director’s gaze reconnects the languages of science, love, poetry, and life. Galilean research for a universal language binds absolute rationality to anthropological necessity. Director Leandro Picarella’s gaze simultaneously captures the depth of a luminous sky and a daily gesture, blooming the sky with the colours of Earth and its people, grounding us in affections and the land while freeing and comforting us. Mixing reality and fiction, earth and sky, evidence and mystery, known and unknown, the viewer’s convictions change as they find themselves disoriented in front of the immensity of the Other.
A special mention goes to “At Night, the Red Sky” by Ali Razi: “Past and present, public squares and mountains blend in the memory of director Ali Razi, who manages to create soft and painful images to evoke heard voices, distant echoes. Light images of deep roots that show us a descent that becomes redemption and take shape in a necessary choice.
Using memory-footage, Ali Razi leads us through the labyrinths of a society in conflict. Time turns into a perpetual cycle. Thus, the Iranian uprising of 2022 find a reflection in those of 1979 and 1980. Antigone becomes a guide of awareness and rediscovery, an ancient voice that binds the West and the East, a woman’s body and man’s strength, sister and companion, but also mother and father in the perseverance of her protest. Her figure resurfaces as a warning. She, who was not born to share hate, but represents love as the key to the meaning of a story that still struggles to find its ending.”
For “Spazio Campania” section, the Pop Jury declares the victory of “Flegrea – Un futuro per Bagnoli” by Stefano Romano. “Stefano Romano tells us the story of a neighbourhood that does not give up, of a community that gathers the shards of shortsighted choices and reacts to many broken promises. In the background, an unfinished land reclamation and the skeleton of a factory that looms over every landscape. The main characters, Federica and Ciro, two twenty-year-old siblings, are portrayed sincerely and credibly. They are two individuals, not just characters, torn between the desire to grow up and the fear of having to give up their dreams. Their connection to a land, kissed by the sun but neglected by politicians, becomes an opportunity to reflect on the value of personal choices, environmental conditioning, and trust in the future.”
A special mention goes to “About Love” by Diego Capone: “At the opposite end of artifice and special effects, Diego Capone records, unbeknownst to his grandparents, all the poetry of their daily lives, simplicity, and dialect. The choice of black and white enhances the view of a bygone era, the soundtrack strengthens the dimension of memory, and the feeling of nostalgia. The cooking of a simple lunch becomes a metaphor for a rendezvous with life, in a suspended and universal dimension. Sparse dialogues, many silences, one certainty: it is here that, despite everything, the meaning of love must be sought.”
