Meteors emerges triumphant at Porto/Post/Doc
by Vitor Pinto
- The Portuguese festival’s awards were handed out on Saturday after it welcomed 12,000 attendees during its fourth edition
Gürcan Keltek’s black-and-white documentary Meteors [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gürcan Keltek
film profile], which centres on the Kurdish-Turkish conflict, has won the Grand Prix at the Porto/Post/Doc festival. The winners of the event’s fourth edition, which ended yesterday, were announced on Saturday night during a ceremony that also included the screening of Sophie Fiennes’ feature Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami [+see also:
trailer
film profile].
Previously awarded at Locarno, Keltek’s feature debut is a Dutch-Turkish co-production that takes us back to 2015, when the Turkish intervention in the south of the country rekindled the Kurdish conflict – a non-televised, armed struggle interrupted by an unusual meteor shower, which was mistakenly believed to be a hail of bombs.
The Biberstein Gusmão Prize, for an emerging director, went to Ziad Kalthoum for Taste of Cement [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], a film portraying the woeful living conditions endured by Syrian workers in Lebanon.
According to Dario Oliveira, one of the three artistic directors of the festival, this was yet another successful year for Porto/Post/Doc, which has been establishing itself locally and is enjoying a growing public appeal: “We can say that we have conquered the city. Over 12,000 people attended the festival – a similar figure to 2016. The average audience size was around 100 people, and several screenings were also sold out,” underlined Oliveira.
Here is the full list of award winners:
Grand Prize
Meteors [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gürcan Keltek
film profile] (Netherlands/Turkey)
Honourable Mention
Dragonfly Eyes (China)
Biberstein Gusmão Prize
Taste of Cement [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Germany/Lebanon/Syria/UAE/Qatar)
Teenage Prize
Makala [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Emmanuel Gras
film profile] (France)
Teenage Prize - Honourable Mention
Drib [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (Norway)
New Cinema Competition
Próxima (Argentina)
New Cinema - Honourable Mention
De Madrugada (Portugal)
ARCHÉ Award
A Olhar Para Ontem (Portugal)
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