The eighth edition of the Rab Film Festival (RAFF), dedicated to investigative cinema, has wrapped on the Croatian island of Rab after five days of screenings, talks and educational and industry activities, bringing stories rooted in contemporary social and political realities to audiences under its motto, “Truth Needs Audience”.

The Best Feature Film Award went to Gábor Holtai’s Feels Like Home, selected by a jury consisting of Croatian director Vinko Brešan, French documentary filmmaker and FIPADOC director Anne Georget, and Croatian actor Luka Peroš.

The film centres on Rita, a woman abducted by a family convinced that she is their long-lost relative and forced to assume the identity they have constructed for her. The jury singled out its combination of thriller atmosphere, performances and unexpected humour, as well as its stylised portrayal of an authoritarian system balancing tension with absurdity. Holtai, who spent five years making what he described as a “small genre film”, was particularly pleased that it had been understood on Rab. Despite its frequent classification as a psychological thriller, he offered a different definition: “This is how we make family comedies in Hungary.”

The Best Documentary Film Award went to Felipe Bustos Sierra’s Everybody to Kenmure Street, which returns to Glasgow in May 2021, when hundreds of residents surrounded an immigration enforcement van to prevent the deportation of two of their neighbours. The jury praised the way the movie combines footage of the event with interviews, archival material and dramatised elements to create an emotionally powerful and ultimately optimistic account of collective resistance. Bustos Sierra, who began working on the film shortly after the events and also spent five years bringing it to the screen, said the filmmakers had wanted to train a spotlight on the “shared humanity” demonstrated that day, adding that it meant a great deal that this had also been felt on Rab.

The Audience Award went to Alberto Rodríguez’s Spanish-French thriller The Tigers, about two professional-diver siblings whose discovery of cocaine hidden in an oil tanker offers a way out of their precarious circumstances.

The festival’s industry activities included the second RAFF Residency, organised in conjunction with ZagrebDox as a continuation of ZagrebDox Pro’s Slow Pitch. Both selected projects had previously taken part in Slow Pitch, an alternative to conventional pitching that allows more time for open discussion. On Rab, this continued over three days of one-to-one work with Danish documentary consultant Tue Steen Müller, and Belgian producer and distributor Thierry Detaille.

Selen Çatalyürekli’s Women of Akbelen Forest, produced by Zeyneb Gültekin, follows women from a Turkish village resisting a coal-mine expansion threatening the Akbelen Forest and their homes. Çatalyürekli called the three days of focused work with experienced external consultants “a luxury for a filmmaker”, while Gültekin valued the combination of detailed work on structuring their extensive footage with practical advice on sales and distribution.

Marina Petković Liker’s Through the Process, produced by Tiha K Gudac for Četveroruka, follows the parents of eight children killed in Vitez, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 1993, as court proceedings three decades later confront them again with their loss. Petković Liker stressed the importance of having time and space to discuss the story’s sensitive layers. Gudac described Slow Pitch and the RAFF Residency as the project’s first steps into the public sphere, providing an intimate and open setting before moving to the next stage of its development.

The festival closed with a screening of Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur at the Rab Open-air Cinema.

Here is the full list of award winners:

Best Feature Film
Feels Like Home - Gábor Holtai (Hungary)

Best Documentary Film
Everybody to Kenmure Street - Felipe Bustos Sierra (UK)

Audience Award
The Tigers - Alberto Rodríguez (Spain/France)