The impact of Brexit on the inhabitants of an island in Northern Ireland, filmed by Belgian director Annabelle Verbeke, in Four seasons in a daywon the top prize at the Melgasso International Documentary Film Festival, which ended on Sunday.
In Jack’s TaxiSusana Nobre, won the prize for the best Portuguese documentary by the decision of the jury, which awarded the film with an Honorable Mention AlcindoMiguel Dores, based on the story of the murder of Alcindo Monteiro in Lisbon in 1995 as a result of a racially motivated hate crime.
Results, Iranian Mohammadreza Farzad, won the Best Short Film award in the main competition. A former student of filmmaker Béla Tarr, who has already distinguished himself in the Berlin Festival Extended Program, Farzad “counts” the everyday gestures of Iranian families with small 8mm films inspired largely by Gregory Burnham’s story of the same name published in the magazine Harpers.
In this section, Honorable Mention goes to Elian Esther Bots for In a stream of words (In a stream of words in free translation) about three interpreters of the International Criminal Court, exposing feelings that were not disclosed at court hearings. The film also received the D. Quixote Award for the best short film, awarded by the International Federation of Film Clubs.
In this section, the award for best feature film went to good, Derya Deniz, testimonies of Yazidi women abducted, raped and trafficked by the Islamic State terrorist group in northern Iraq, through the memory of one of the victims.
Winner of the Jean-Loup Passeq Award for Best Documentary, Four seasons in a day (Four seasons in one day), Annabelle Verbeke, focuses on the view of the inhabitants of an island in Northern Ireland, exposed for the first time to the Brexit border, on their daily itinerary to Ireland.
“A humorous, light and subtle portrait of a people stuck between invisible and visible borders”, in the context of today’s political reality, the jury writes about the choice, emphasizing “references to the bloody past and what is yet to come”, for a time when “borders in all measurements come back to reality.”
Documentary by Susana Nobre, In Jack’s Taxipremiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2021, takes place between New York and Aljandra to tell the story of Joaquim Calzada, who, after working as a taxi driver, worked as a skills tester for the Novas Oportunidades program in Vila Franca de Xira. and limousines for decades in New York.
The places around Lisbon and the stories of the families he follows intersect with the social and economic map of the great city he left behind and how he understood his changes. “A film in which the border between reality and fiction plays beautifully and artistically,” the jury emphasized.
documentary Alcindowritten by National Competition Honoree Miguel Dores addresses the murder of Alcindo Monteiro, a Portuguese citizen of Cape Verde, in such a way that instead of focusing on neo-Nazi violence, it aims “to be a tribute to those who resist and those who falls,” the filmmaker and anthropologist explained to Luce ahead of the film’s 2021 screening at DocLisboa and the Caminhos festival.
“The director takes us into the colonial past and traces its obvious traces into the present, appealing to the recognition of the existence of racism, which is rooted today in Portugal and in Europe. The film recalls the atrocities of colonialism and racial hatred. Realities that most non-racial Europeans choose to ignore. At the same time, this is a powerful tribute to those who fight against this,” supported the jury.
The Jean Loup Passeq Award for Best Poster went to Mafalda Salgueiro for i started themanimated short film he directed with honorable mention to Dani Sanchis, Sycorax, Lois Patiño and Matias Pinheiro.
The official jury for this edition of the International Documentary Film Festival MDOC – Melgaço included Professor of Cinematography Aida Vallejo, Director of the Institute of Cinema and Theater Arts of the University of Silesia Anna Hut, critic Carlos Natalio, director Juan Pablo. Gonzalez and co-director of the European Documentary Association Marion Schmidt.
The awards go to Jean-Loup Passeq (1936–2016), French critic, former head of the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, who helped create the Melgasso Film Museum in partnership with the La Rochelle Film Festival, which he directed. This year, 32 films from 16 different countries took part in the international MDOC competition. The festival is organized by the association Ao Norte together with the municipality of Melgaso and started on the 1st.
