Bloody Beans and the struggle for independence on a hot summer’s day
- Algerian director Narimane Mari’s first documentary, where children re-enact Algeria's fight for freedom, won top prize at the 11th Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival
Algerian director Narimane Mari’s first documentary, Bloody Beans (photo), received the top Dox:Award for Best Film of the Year, when the 11th CPH:DOX-Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival presented its prizes at the Royal Theatre on Saturday (November 16). The festival ended yesterday.
Bloody Beans [+see also:
trailer
film profile] follows a group of Algerian children going to the beach on a hot summer’s day, where they re-enact Algeria's historical struggle for independence, and end up abducting a soldier. “A radical, original and playful debut film, with a fresh and joyful approach to the question and politics of re-enactment, and a provocative insistence on play as a continuing act of resistance in the process of decolonialisation,” said the jury.
The newly-instigated F:act Award, honouring investigative journalism in documentaries, went to US director Richard Rowley’s Dirty Wars, about America’s undeclared wars, and the New:vision Award, for the strongest artistic view, to A Spell To Ward Off the Darkness, the first feature collaboration between directors Ben Rivers (UK) and Ben Russell (US).
Swedish director Marius Dybwad-Brandrud’s After You, filmed in his own home where his mother spends all her time with her dying father, while he spends all his time with his mother, won the Nordic:Doc Award for Best Nordic Film. The Reel Talent Award was collected by Lebanese-Danish director Mahdi Fleifel’s A World Not Ours, and the Politiken Audience Award by Everyday Rebellion, from Iranian-Austrian directors Armaand and Arash Riahi.
Presenting more than 170 feature-length films in 11 days, CPH-DOX also hosted a pitching forum in collaboration with Eurimages, where Russian director Victor Kossakovsky was given €15,000 for his new project, Aquarela. Special screenings included the world premiere of UK director (and jury member) Richard Misek’s Rohmer in Paris, a study of French director Eric Rohmer (1920-2010).
Full list of awards at CPH:DOX 2013
Dox:Award (Best Film): Bloody Beans. Dir: Narimane Mari (Algeria/France) Dirty Wars
F:act Award (Best Investigative Film): Dirty Wars. Dir: Richard Rowley (US)
New:vision Award (Strongest Artistic View): A Spell To Ward Off the Darkness. Dirs: Ben Rivers, Ben Russell (France/Estonia)
Nordic:Doc Award (Best Nordic Film): After You. Dir: Marius Dybwad-Brandrud (Sweden)
Reel Talent Award: A World Not Ours. Dir: Mahdi Fleifel (Lebanon-Denmark)
Politiken Audience Award: Everyday Rebellion. Dirs: Armaand and Arash Riahi (Austria/Switzerland)
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