The industry section of the 50th International Film Festival Nyon Visions du Réel is one of the richest and most comprehensive on the European documentary festival circuit. An awards ceremony on 10 April saw the festival announce the award winners in the Docs in Progress, Rough Cut Lab and Opening Scenes Lab sections.

In the Docs in Progress competition, which hosted eight projects in post-production (the full list can be found here), the Freestudios DCP Delivery Package Award went to Las Ranas by Argentinian filmmaker Edgardo Castro and his production company El Pampero Cine. Described as “a love story behind bars in a Buenos Aires prison”, the film focuses on a 23-year-old inmate and a 19-year-old girl, a rana, a term for a woman who visits an inmate but is not a family member. Instead, she gives him love and brings him food, but she also smuggles in drugs or mobile phones. 

The asterisk * Digital Marketing Award, consisting of digital marketing and social-media curation by the Greek consultancy firm, went to A Machine to Live In by US directors Yoni Goldstein and Meredith Zielke, and production companies Mass Ornament Films and Benz Digital. The film examines how the hyper-rational modernism of Brasília gave rise to the densest concentration of UFO cults and esoteric religious communities in the world. 

In the Rough Cut Lab section, where four projects at the rough-cut stage were presented (the full list can be found here), the Raggioverde Subtitling Award was handed to the Moroccan-French co-production Our Dark 70's by Ali Essafi, and production companies Cinemaat Productions and Laterit Productions. It is an archive-footage project that lifts the lid on the mood and the artistic output of an era that has long been censored. Assembling fragments of works (film, photos and sound) and weaving them together with interviews with the protagonists, the film will tell the story of the unique period known as “The Years of Lead”, the first time in Morocco’s post-colonial history when struggles for and dreams of change began to surface.

The Opening Scenes Lab is a special programme for the 16 filmmakers invited to the Opening Scenes section of the festival, dedicated to first short films or student films. Accompanied by two tutors, Italian journalist and film critic Luciano Barisone and Nadja Tennstedt, coordinator of the EFM's DocSalon, the filmmakers had the opportunity to get acquainted with the international market and its decision makers, to look for distribution for their short films and to meet potential partners for their next projects. The tutors led them through various events where they met festival representatives, short-film experts and producers.

In addition, three of their movies received prizes that will take them to the IDFA and a creative residency in Slon (Romania), provided by the META Cultural Foundation, and guaranteed broadcasting rights for a film and an editing residency for filmmakers were provided by France's Tënk.

Here is the list of award winners:

Opening Scenes Lab awards 

META Cultural Foundation Award
Angor Pectoris - Sophie Dascal (Switzerland) 
Production: HEAD Geneva University of Art and Design 

IDFA Talent Award
Mars, Oman - Vanessa Del Campo Gatell (Belgium)
Production: Cassette for Timescapes

Tënk Award
Dead Sea Dying - Katharina Rabl, Rebecca Zehr (Germany)
Production: taro films 

Docs in Progress awards 

Freestudios DCP Delivery Package Award
Las Ranas - Edgardo Castro (Argentina)
Production company: El Pampero Cine

asterisk * Digital Marketing Award
A Machine to Live In - Yoni Goldstein, Meredith Zielke (USA)
Production companies: Mass Ornament Films, Benz Digital 

Rough Cut Lab awards

Raggioverde Subtitling Award
Our Dark 70's - Ali Essafi (Morocco/France)
Production companies: Cinemaat Productions, Laterit Productions