14/04/2025 - The Argentinian director’s film won the Grand Prize in the International Competition; the Burning Lights award went to The Vanishing Point by Bani Khoshnoudi

DoP Lucas Olivares, director Clarisa Navas, protagonist Ángel Omar Stegmayer Caballero and producer Eugenia Campos Guevara, with their award for The Prince of Nanawa

The Grand Prize of the 56th edition of Visions du Réel was given to The Prince of Nanawa [+see also:
film review
film profile], the third feature by Argentinian filmmaker Clarisa Navas. The jury of the International Feature Film Competition, made up of Japanese festival director Hama Haruka and filmmakers Eliza Hittman and Athina Rachel Tsangari, was won over by the film which follows its character over ten years, from childhood to adulthood, on the border between Argentina and Paraguay,nd “oscillates, with confidence and humility, between autofiction, fiction and reality, and resists the dominating narrative,” a melange of genres in service of a powerful message that is very dear to the Nyon festival.

The jury also rewarded the American film To Use a Mountain by Casey Carter with a Special Prize. The film takes us back to the 1980s, in the heart of a complex topic which is that of the elimination of nuclear waste. The France-Cameroon co-production Anamocot by Marie Voignier, the portrait of French singer Michel Ballot navigating between science and ancient beliefs, won the Special Mention.

Filmmakers Scott Cummings and Elene Naveriani and producer Thomas Hakin, who made up the Burning Lights Competition jury, recognised the film The Vanishing Point [+see also:
film review
film profile], a co-production between Iran, the United States and France by Teheran-born US-based filmmaker and visual artist Bani Khoshnoudi. The poignant film tells the story of a cousin of the filmmaker’s who disappeared and was executed during the 1988 purges in Iranian political prisons. To quote the jury, The Vanishing Point “delivers a brave and radical exploration of shared pain and collective resistance”. Two other films were also rewarded: To the West, in Zapata by David Bim, the story of a family in constant struggle for its survival, which received the Special Jury Prize, as well as the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize, and National Pride: From Jericho to Gaza by Belgian director Sven Augustijnen which received a Special Mention.

In the National Competition, the jury honoured The Multiple Lives of Andres, a co-production between Switzerland and Belgium by Baptiste Janon and Rémi Pons which, taking inspiration from a novel by B. Traven, follows the tiring daily life of a lorry driver working for a European transport company. The jury was seduced by the film’s force and by its ability to “reveal how men such as Andrès become the silent cogs of a system that extracts not only their time, but also their souls”. The list of winners is completed by Sediments, the second feature by Laura Coppens which won the Special Jury Prize, and the Special Mention went to Little by Little, the debut feature by Matias Carlier, which draws the portrait of a Lausanne teenager in search of his identity.

Emilie Bujès, the festival’s artistic director, is pleased with this list which “includes in particular films directed over a long period of time, thus confirming our profound commitment to proposing exclusive and intense cinematic experiences, and offering a bulwark against the formatting of film and thought.”

The full list of winners:

International Feature Film Competition

Grand Prize
The Prince of Nanawa [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Clarisa Navas (Argentina/Paraguay/Colombia)

Special Jury Prize
To Use a Mountain – Casey Carter (USA)

Special Mention
Anamocot – Marie Voignier (France/Cameroon)

Burning Lights Competition

Burning Lights Competition Award
The Vanishing Point [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Bani Khosnoudi (Iran/USA/France)

Special Jury Prize
To the West, in Zapata – David Bim (Cuba/Spain)

Special Mention
National Pride: From Jericho to Gaza – Sven Augustijnen (Belgium)

National Competition

National Competition Award
The Multiple Lives of Andres – Baptiste Janon, Remi Pons (Belgium/Switzerland)

Special Jury Prize
Sediments – Laura Coppens (Switzerland)

Special Mention
Little by Little – Matias Carlier (Switzerland)

International Mid-length and Short Film Competition

Best Mid-length Film Award
Les Voyageurs – David Bingong (Cameroon/Spain)

Best Short Film Award
Another Other – Bex Oluwatoyin Thompson (USA)

Special Mentions
Khmerica – Thibaut Amri, Antoine Guide, Lucas Sénécaut (Cambodia/France/Qatar)
Partir, c’est naître à nouveau – Mladan Bundalo (Belgium/Bosnia-Herzegovina)

Other prizes

Grand Angle Competition Audience Award
Cutting Through Rocks – Sara Khaki, Mohammadreza Eyni (Iran/Germany/ USA/Qatar)

Special Youth Jury Mid-length Film Prize
Objects Don’t Randomly Fall From the Sky – Maria Estela Paiso (Philippines)

Special Youth Jury Short Film Prize
The Town That Drove Away – Grzegorz Piekarski, Natalia Pietsch (Poland)

FIPRESCI international Critics Prize
To the West, in Zapata – David Bim

Interreligious Prize
Obscure Night – "Ain’t I A Child" ? [+see also:
film review
film profile] – Sylvain George (Switzerland/France/Portugal)

Zonta Prize
And the Fish Fly Above Our Heads – Dima El-Horr (Lebanon/France/Saudi Arabia)

Perception Change Award
The Family Approach – Daniel Abma (Germany)

(Translated from French)