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MIA 2015

The winners of the Eurimages and MIA Co-production Development Awards announced

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- Costanza Quatriglio’s Just Like My Son, Look Up by Fulvio Risuleo and My Body Will Bury You by Giovanni la Pàrola are among the awarded projects

The winners of the Eurimages and MIA Co-production Development Awards announced
Costanza Quatriglio, with her prize at the MIA (©MIA)

The Eurimages Co-production Development Award jury – comprising Irena Strzałkowska, Ed Guiney and Stefano Massenzi – was struck by the projects in this year’s MIA New Cinema Network, owing to the variety of cultures they represented, thus testifying to the vitality of European cinema. 

Eurimages executive director Roberto Olla handed the award – a €20,000 prize for the development of the best European project in New Cinema Network that best meets the collaboration and co-production criteria that inspire Eurimages – to Costanza Quatriglio’s Just Like My Son (producer: Andrea Paris). The jury lauded its portrayal of the plight of people who have recently moved to our countries from some of the most disadvantaged and dangerous places in the world, reminding us of how previous generations of Europeans themselves had to travel in search of a better life. Just Like My Son is co-produced by French company 4A4 Productions. Filming is scheduled to start in summer 2016.          

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A Special Mention went to Kutlug Ataman’s Hilal, Feza and Other Planets for its courage, liveliness and contemporary resonance in tackling the subjects of tolerance and freedom at the gates of Europe.

The MIA jury for Feature Film Projects – composed of Matthew Baker, Iole Giannattasio and Anne Lai – appreciated the high quality and diversity of the Italian-involved projects in this year’s MIA New Cinema Network and Make It with Italy selections, and ICE president Riccardo Monti was proud to present the first edition of the €15,000 MIA Awards to Look Up by Fulvio Risuleo (produced by Donatello della Pepa) and My Body Will Bury You by Giovanni la Pàrola (produced by Olivia Musini) for their originality and vision. 

Look Up won for the fresh language and unique voice with which it presents a parallel world over the rooftops of Rome; this warm and passionate adventure through a fantastic microcosm is made up of surprising characters and surreal stories narrated with realism and balance. Meanwhile, revenge tale My Body Will Bury You takes the clichéd trope of the Western and gives it a fresh and dynamic feel by focusing on new heroes, a group of female bandits who tear through Southern Italy in the late 19th century. An inherently bold and ambitious story, told with great flair and imagination, it makes full use of the scope that only cinema can provide.       

In addition, two €5,000 IDS Development Awards were presented to documentary projects in the Italian Doc Screenings section by an international jury comprising Catherine Olsen, Markus Nikel and Christian Popp. 

The first award went to Matteo Bastianelli’s Souls of Syrians, a highly personal documentary that follows a young Syrian refugee and is made all the more unique by the relationship between the filmmaker, a talented photojournalist, and the refugee, who takes up a camera to capture his life in Syria and his dangerous journey across Europe. The jury hopes the award will not only help him to continue shooting, but also create momentum for the project, and inspire those broadcasters who expressed an interest in coming on board.

The second winner was Happy Winter [+see also:
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, about people living on a Palermo beach, by first-time filmmaker Giovanni Totaro. The jury was impressed by the cinematic approach and energy of a project they believe has the potential to become a successful theatrical documentary in Italy and beyond, and which, with the right choice of characters, could offer an extraordinary insight into the reality of a struggling Italian community both on and off the beach. 

The jury also chose to honour two other documentary projects with Special Mentions: Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman’s The Killer and the Butterfly, which takes us inside an infamous Naples boxing gym; and Wikimania Esino Lario by Lorenzo Faggi and Chiara Campara, which explores what happens when a small village is invaded by 1,000 Wikipedians and portrays the clash of cultures that results.

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(Translated from Italian)

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