Awards / Migrants, refugees and displaced communities

The recording of the Award ceremony is available on Youtube.

For the competition “A-Place / Migrants, refugees and displaced communities”, we received more than 380 submissions and shortlisted 31 films to be included in the final selection and to be screened on a dedicated online platform with free live streaming during the days of the festival.

The jury was composed by A-Place partners:

Maria Irene Aparicio, New University of Lisbon | NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Portugal
Patricia Pereira, New University of Lisbon | NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Portugal
Victoria Sacco, LOOP Barcelona, Spain

The jury assigned the following awards:
 

First prize: “La gita” by Salvatore Allocca.
Motivation of the jury: the film is the story of Megalie, an intelligent teenager, and daughter of an immigrant family from Senegal, born in Italy. Despite her apparently normal life, she experiences the drama of her condition as foreigner in a precarious situation, affected by administrative and bureaucratic issues. La Gita is a beautiful story of friendship, love and solidarity that contributes to deconstruct immigrant stereotypes
 

Second prize:  “Withering Refuge” by Pedro Figueiredo Neto
Motivation of the jury: the film is a reflexive anthropological and ethnographical piece, with a clear narrative and with an original and experimental artistic approach. Outstanding script and beautiful photography. the voice-over narrative can eventually lead the spectator to a reflection on migration and colonialism
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Third prize: “The Note” by Siavash Eydani
Motivation of the jury: Despite the surreal context expressed through the mise en scène, The Note can be a metaphor for the many thousands of people who live in transit, without a fixed home, or a stable life. Striking, poetic; it transposes basic domestic acts (sleeping, sitting and writing on a table) in the limitless space of the sea. The story is repeating itself, with the child, as the waves of the sea return, over and over, with the mystery of the note
 

Honorable mention: “Bismillah” by Alessandro Grande
Motivation of the jury: the film is a moment in the life of a young girl, Samira, a 10-year-old Tunisian girl, full of anguish and despair caused by her condition as an illegal refugee. Like the song Samira sings (Bismillah, in the name of God, in Arabic) the film is itself a prayer. Bismillah is a story of hardship and solidarity among people and about becoming adult too soon.
 

Honorable mention: “Migrante” by Esteban Ezequiel Dalinger and Cesar Daniel Iezzi
Motivation of the jury: Migrante is an animated short film created by more than 50 animators from 11 countries in Latin America. It shows the complexity of migration, generated by different motivations regarding living conditions, family situations, travel arrangements and legal status. It underlines the difficult aspect of living abroad, away from home, by spreading a positive message about cultural diversity.