14/04/2011

At the end of Luciano Barisone’s first edition, the Visions du Réel Film Festival awarded its Grand Prize to Tatiana Huezo Sánchez’s Mexican feature The Tiniest Place, which also won the Interreligious Jury Prize. But the major winners of the event were European films, which swept up about fifteen of the 22 prizes.

In the main competition, the Grand Prize for Best Director went to Finnish helmer Mia Halme’s Ikuisesti Sinun, while the jury awarded a Special Mention to Belgian director Manno Lanssens’s Epilogue.

Meanwhile, the medium-length and short film competitions crowned German director Sebastian Mez’s Ein Brief Aus Deutschland and Dutch filmmaker Catherine Van Campen’s Flying Anne, respectively. Apart from an Israeli production, all the other prize-winning films in these sections were from Europe.

European cinema was also represented in Visions du Réel’s Swiss prize list. Indeed, this year’s Best Swiss Film Award went to Bettina Borgfeld and David Bernet’s German/Swiss co-production Raising Resistance and the Society of Swiss Writers/Suissimage Award for Most Innovative Film was presented to Yamina Zoutat’s French/Swiss co-production The Washer Women.

This year’s edition was attended by about 20,000 festival-goers (18,000 viewers at screenings) and the international market (Doc Outlook-International Market) attracted almost 500 professionals.

Finally, the local and regional authorities announced at the start of the festival that they would renew their funding for Visions du Réel. The next edition will be held from April 17-25, 2012.

(Translated from French)