Internationales Festival Zeichen der Nacht - Berlin - International Festival Signs of the Night


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19th International Festival Signs of the Night - Berlin (7th Edition) / August 4-8, 2021

ONLINE EDITION
9




MAIN AWARD




Requiem for Wind & Water

Amalie Atkins
Canada / 2019 / 0:25:16

Hovering between the physical and spirit world, twin sisters seek retribution. Through the unseen help of their ancestors and unusual coincidences, the twins learn the secret weakness of the witch.

INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE


 


Jury Declaration:

Main Prize to "Req uiem for Wind & Water" This film bordering on video art in it's metaphorical imagery achieves its purpose without a single word, creating a strong feeling of presence in a folk tale like hallucinatory world.








SIGNS AWARD

The Signs Award honors films, which treat an important subject in an original and convincing way



Green Thoughts

William Hong-xiao Wei
United Kingdom / 2020 / 0:19:55

Somewhere in the world there is a remote island. The sea. Lush hills. The impenetrable forest. The constantly changing weather. In a lodge by the sea, a Chinese writer immersing herself in reading and writing encounters a Japanese girl who is in a melancholic mood. "Have you ever seen something after its disappearance?" the girl asks. "Where are we right now?" the writer asks. "Somewhere in the past," the girl answers. Night after night some dreams lull them into sleep, but a heavy heart is lost in deep thoughts. What has actually happened and what the two girls are feeling, imagining or remembering starts to overlap. Is the scene of the outer world also becoming the self's inner world?

GERMAN PREMIERE

 


Jury Declaration:

Signes Award to "Green Thoughts". We rarely expect from an experimental film something more than an interesting idea or concept - it's already great to have just that, but this film goes further. It manages to take our imagination across the borders between worlds with dreamlike images that break the limits of conventional cinematography in a very easy and nonchalant way.




Director Declaration:

Thank you so much for the jury's recognition of my debut short film Green Thoughts. It is a great honour for me to receive the Signs Award in the Cinema in Transgression Section. In hindsight, Green Thoughts seems to mirror our current way of life in one way or another, as it is a film about people who undergo separation, loneliness, and social isolation, and who attempts to make a deep connection with their living world in the past through remembrance and imagination. This award means a lot to me. The award in the particular programme Cinema in Transgression Section is a great encouragement to me to reflect on unconventional ideas that challenge certain norms in my future works, and to further explore the cinematic medium's expressive potentials. Thanks again for your recognition and encouragement!



 

 


NIGHT AWARD
*
The Night Award honors films, which are able to balance ambiguity and complexity characterized by enigmatic mysteriousness and subtleness,
which keeps mind and consideration moving



Notturno

Giulio Petteno
Switzerland / 2019 / 0:19:43

A long night waiting to rediscover yourself before the day arrives, meeting different people. A reflection on the mixed feelings and emotions that follow each other when everything is still to be decided.

EUROPEAN PREMIERE

 


Jury Declaration:


Night Award goes to "Notturno", because this film shows to us the loneliness, the quietness, the void that come to us suddenly, but also the calm, the equilibrium and the beauty of the living when the silence and the calm makes us stop and forces us to see the living from another perspective. And it does it with great shots!!