After an exciting 18-day run, the 17th edition of CinÉast (6-23 October) culminated in an awards ceremony held at Kinepolis Kirchberg in Luxembourg City. The event celebrated the finest of this year’s Central and Eastern European cinema, offering a resonant finale to nearly three weeks of screenings, exhibitions, cine-debates and concerts, among an array of other activities.

The international jury was led by Romanian director Alexander Nanau, who also held a master class at CinÉast. The jury also featured Estonian director Anna Hints, Luxembourgish director Jacques Molitor, Hungarian helmer Szilárd Bernáth and Luxembourgish actress Hana Sofia Lopes.

The jurors awarded the Grand Prix to Toxic [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Directors Talks @ European…
intervista: Saulė Bliuvaitė
scheda film], the haunting debut by Saulė Bliuvaitė, which zeroes in on two 13-year-old girls in a bleak industrial Lithuanian town, blending gritty realism with eerie, dreamlike imagery to craft a coming-of-age narrative that delves into the complexities of abuse, both endured and inflicted. The jury recognised the film as the unanimous winner: “In the long list of coming-of-age stories, this debut film really stands out and brims with raw talent. The young filmmaker managed to draw us in with the psychology of her characters, the electrifying performances, her cinematic choices and the heightened, almost unsettling atmosphere.”

The Special Jury Prize went to Pavel G Vesnakov’s Windless [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Pavel G Vesnakov
scheda film]. The filmmaker’s sophomore feature follows Kaloyan, a young man who makes a “reluctant yet redemptive” return to his Bulgarian hometown after his father's passing, tasked with clearing out his family home. Nanau, who announced the verdict, noted, “The jury was absorbed by the bold cinematic choices of a director using his craft to capture the impossibility of healing from past traumas inflicted by a vanishing world, drowned in mythicism by its survivors.”

Bliuvaitė’s Toxic also took home the Critics’ Prize, awarded by the press jury, consisting of journalists Jeff Schinker (100.7), Mike Winter (Revue) and Cineuropa’s own Sevara Pan. The jurors commended the film’s “daring artistic vision, its candid and raw portrayal of the reality of youths as they navigate their lives on the verge of adulthood, and its poetic juxtaposition of a dark and unsettling world and the beauty of a friendship between two outsiders”.

The press jury also gave a Special Mention to Lesson Learned [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Bálint Szimler
scheda film] by Bálint Szimler, which centres on two newcomers, teacher Juci and boy Palkó, in a struggling school in Hungary. The press jury remarked that the film, which is “punctuated with humour”, focuses “its empathetic and gentle lens on two outsiders, thus offering a critical vision of Hungarian society”.

Four further films screened in the main competition: 78 Days [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Emilija Gašić
scheda film] by Emilija Gašić, which invites us into the intimate world of three sisters in the Serbian countryside as they record a Hi8 video diary after their father is drafted into the army during the NATO bombing; Holy Week [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Andrei Cohn
scheda film], a historical drama by Andrei Cohn that loosely adapts IL Caragiale’s novella The Easter Torch; Minghun by Jan P Matuszynski, which unpacks the cultural intricacies within a single family after a Polish man and his Chinese father-in-law set out to find a perfect partner for their deceased family member to perform the Chinese ritual of minghun, a post-mortem wedding; and Mr. and Mrs. Stodola [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Petr Hátle
scheda film] by Petr Hátle, the filmmaker’s fictional feature debut, based on a true story, which presents a psychological drama centred on a Czech couple in a tranquil village who embark on a killing spree in the early 2000s.

The Young Talent Prize was handed out by a jury of film students of BTS Cinéma et Audiovisuel at the Lycée des Arts et Métiers, including Adriano Asola, Nadine Van Breda, Tun Wampach and Antoine Raffaelli. The young talent jury awarded It’s Not My Film by Maria Zbąska, which depicts a tumultuous relationship of a couple, Wanda and Janek, as they go on a phone-free hiking trip along the Polish Baltic coast, seeking to mend their crisis. The jurors noted the film’s “effective direction, the accuracy of the characters and depth of the script, but above all, the couple [to] whom everyone can [relate]”.

Waves [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Jiří Mádl
scheda film] by Jiří Mádl emerged as an audience favourite, nabbing the Audience Award for Best Feature Film. Set in Prague during the late 1960s, the film chronicles the efforts of a group of dedicated journalists at Czechoslovak Radio as they defy state censorship and the secret police.

Here is the full list of award winners:

Feature Competition

Grand Prix
Toxic [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Directors Talks @ European…
intervista: Saulė Bliuvaitė
scheda film] – Saulė Bliuvaitė (Lithuania)

Special Jury Prize
Windless [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Pavel G Vesnakov
scheda film] – Pavel G Vesnakov (Bulgaria/Italy)

Critics’ Prize 
Toxic – Saulė Bliuvaitė
Special Mention of the Press Jury
Lesson Learned [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Bálint Szimler
scheda film] – Bálint Szimler (Hungary)

Young Talents Competition

Young Talents Award
It’s Not My Film – Maria Zbąska (Poland)

Audience Awards

Audience Award for Best Feature Film
Waves [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Jiří Mádl
scheda film] – Jiří Mádl (Czech Republic/Slovakia)

Audience Award for Best Short Fiction Film
The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent – Nebojša Slijepčević (Croatia/France/Bulgaria/Slovenia)

Audience Award for Best Short Documentary Film
Rising Above – Natálie Durchánková (Czech Republic)

Audience Award for Best Short Animated Film
Hello Summer – Martin Smatana, Veronika Zacharová (Slovakia/Czech Republic/France)