The 18th Mediterranean Film Festival Split (FMFS, 11-21 June), one of the region’s most popular gatherings (generating 10,000 admissions in a city with a population of 160,000), drew to a close last weekend at the magnificent Bačvice open-air cinema, with the regional premiere of Tolga Karaçelik’s The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer, with the director and stars Steve Buscemi and Tuğçe Altuğ in attendance.

Spanish films ended up winning all three prizes: Eva Libertad’s Berlinale crowd-pleaser Deaf [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Eva Libertad
scheda film] picked up the Best Feature Film Award, worth €2,000, while Blava Terra by Marina Auclair March won the Best Short Film Award of €3,000, the highest financial prize in the region for shorts. Céntrico by Luso Martínez was the audience favourite and walked away with €1,000. 

The main jury comprised three regional exhibitors: Ana Lazarević, president of the Exhibitors Association of Montenegro; Gregor Janežić, of Culture Centre Cerknica in Slovenia; and Filip Zadro, of Zagreb’s Kino Tuškanac. This is no coincidence, as FMFS has revived the exhibition network on the coast and the islands, re-opening and digitising multiple cinemas with support from the Croatian Audiovisual Centre.

FMFS focuses its industry activities on education and audience building. These include programmes for young children aimed at film literacy and video-game development, as well as a dubbing workshop for students.

“After 20 years of working on various animation projects, I found that European animated films are very exciting, as they often deal with topics crucial for children’s upbringing, and do so in a smart and creative way. It is crucial for FMFS to be dedicated to young audiences,” says actor Ivan Djurović, who tutored the dubbing workshop.

Through its distribution and exhibition arm, Kino Mediteran, FMFS is bringing dubbed European children’s films to cinemagoers, such as The Light of Aisha and Fox and Hare Save the Forest [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Mascha Halberstad
scheda film].

“With a clear mission of fostering education through entertainment, we place significant emphasis on involving young audiences and talents in the earliest stages of film creation,” says FMFS head of industry Ena Rahelić. “Our experience shows that film education through inclusion is a key factor for success. Through numerous workshops and cross-media activities – such as films, games, books and animation – we have attracted a new audience that regularly participates in our workshops and has already become a new generation of regular cinemagoers.”

The industry section also featured Script Spot, a screenwriting and pitching workshop for newcomers, tutored by Mariella Harpelunde Jensen, with Lucija Bosančić’s The Swallow and Natko Jurdana’s Dora’s Little School on Finances winning The Perfect Pitch Award, comprising online pitching consultation with Valeria Richter and Helene Granqvist.

Here is the full list of FMFS award winners:

Best Feature Film
Deaf [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Eva Libertad
scheda film] – Eva Libertad (Spain)

Best Short Film
Blava Terra - Marina Auclair March (Spain)

Audience Award
Céntrico - Luso Martínez (Spain)

Script Spot

The Perfect Pitch Award
The Swallow – Lucija Bosančić (Croatia)
Dora’s Little School on Finances - Natko Jurdana (Croatia)