Gibara, Cuba International Film Festival Prize Winners
HAVANA TIMES – The Gibara International Film Festival closed its 2022 edition on August 6th with a simple awards ceremony at the Jibá Cinema, in which the juries communicated their verdict on the works in competition in the Fiction, Documentary and Animation categories. Gibara is a usually quite fishing village in the northeastern Cuban province of Holguin.
The trio dedicated to Fiction cinema, made up of the Cuban film director Arturo Sotto (president), director Laura Cazador, from Switzerland, and the Spaniard Tito Cañada, organizer of the Social Film Festival (FECISO), decided to award the top prize (Lucia Award) in fiction to the feature film Papicha.
The Algerian film, directed by Mounia Meddour, stands out for “defending equal rights against intolerance and religious and cultural obscurantism.”
Meanwhile, the prize for best short film went to The Dead Son, by Cuban Maysel Bello, for “the synthesis and interpretive strength of the cast that transmits a singular emotion.”
In addition, they decided to give a Special Award to the French-Romanian-Turkish co-production, The Criminals, directed by Serhat Karaaslan; and a Special Mention to the Cuban film The Campaign, by Eduardo del Llano.
Awards in documentaries and animation
The Documentary and Animation jury decided to award Ophir, directed by Alexandre Berman and Oliver Pollet (France-United Kingdom) for its quality of “respectfully revealing the dignity and struggle of the original inhabitants of a small island located in Papua and New Guinea”. Mata, by the Norwegian Ingrid Fadnes and the Brazilian Fabio Nascimento, received a Special Mention.
The jury comprised of cultural manager Francisco Jiménez, from Spain; Mexican film director Amaranta Díaz; and the Cuban documentary filmmaker Belkis Vega (president), also awarded a Lucía to the short film La communion de mi cousin Andrea, by the Spaniard Brandan Cerviño, which questioned “religious impositions in childhood.”
As for the Animation category, they awarded the French film Calamity the childhood of Martha Jane Cannary, by Remi Chaye, for showing the strength of a girl in the midst of a world where women are denied that they can accept challenges and decide on her destiny.”
Since the massive fire broke out at the supertanker port in Matanzas the day before on August 5, the Organizing Committee decided to suspend the festive closing activities in solidarity with the people of Matanzas.