‘Misericordia’ Takes Top Prize at the Black Nights Film Festival

Italian writer-director Emma Dante’s “Misericordia” has gained the highest prize on the Black Nights Movie Pageant in Tallinn, Estonia. Tailored from her personal play, her third function tells the story of a younger man (Simone Zambelli) with studying difficulties, cared for by a bunch of intercourse employees on an island, defending him from the cruelty of his abusive father. It’s a uncooked portrait of a marginalized group of individuals, mixing pure fantastic thing about the areas with the grime of on a regular basis existence.

Zambelli additionally took the award for finest actor, for his position because the man-child on the heart of the drama. The very best actress prize was shared by Lubna Azabal, who performs a trainer in Jawad Rhalib’s “Amal,” and Kim Higelin, who stars within the controversial French drama “Consent,” directed by Vanessa Filho, as a young person having an affair with a manipulative and exploitative 50-year-old author.

The very best director award went to Manuel Martin Cuenca for “Andrea’s Love,” who additionally – together with co-writer Lola Mayo – picked up the very best screenplay award. Cuenca’s seventh function is a personality portrait of the eponymous teenager who is decided to seek out love whilst she is busy taking care of her siblings and attending faculty.

New Zealander Loren Taylor’s darkly comedian “The Moon Is Upside Down” was awarded as the very best first function, with Eeva Magi’s “Mo Mama” and Ilango Ram’s “Tentigo” sharing the particular jury prize.

Estonia’s Oscar contender “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” maintained its prize-winning momentum into awards season, selecting up the highest prize within the Baltic Movie sidebar. “Profitable this award is like coming house,” the delighted producer Marianne Ostrat informed Selection. In her acceptance speech, an exuberant director Anna Hints sang a cleaning tune to the jury and viewers.

“5 and a Half Love Tales in an Residence in Vilnius Lithuania” gained the Rebels With a Trigger part. The movie is Lithuanian director Tomas Vengris’ comply with as much as his debut function “Motherland,” winner of the Baltic Movie Competitors in 2019. The portmanteau movie is a witty exploration of up to date love tales by way of an AirBnB rental.

The very best director award went to Argentinian Agustin Toscano for “I Belief You,” a hybrid of documentary, fiction and musical about two ex-nuns who fall in love, go away the convent and undertake a baby solely to be charged with a homicide, their household damaged up and the pair of them imprisoned.

The FIPRESCI award went to Aylin Tezel’s “Falling into Place,” a bitter-sweet romantic comedy set on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, and by which the writer-director additionally stars as one half of a one night time stand which has longer lasting emotional resonance.

Lifetime Achievement awards have been bestowed on Estonian composer and musician Rein Rannap and British movie director Mike Newell whose profession goes from the difficult drama of “Dance With a Stranger,” the superlative gangster movie “Donnie Brasco” to eye-catching hits reminiscent of “4 Weddings and a Funeral” and “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Hearth.”

Canadian thriller “The G” missed out on awards however a strong efficiency by Dale Dickey (“Winter’s Bone”) and its gender flipping story of violent revenge makes for an unique and entertaining thriller. Montenegrin director Nemanja Becanovic’s “Grocery store” is a good satire, imbuing its story of a stowaway in a grocery store with a Kubrickian chill.

“Affected person#1,” an absurdist comedy by Georgian director Rezo Gigineishvili, has a decrepit Soviet chief within the final days of his decline, cared for by a nurse performed with historic irony by Ukrainian actor Olga Makeeva. Much less manic than “The Dying of Stalin,” it’s extra just like the “Final Days of Brezhnev.”

Two off the wall comedies have been additionally standouts: Rozália Szeleczki’s Hungarian rom-com “Cat Name,” by which a 30-year-old architect (Franciska Töröcsik) falls in love with a speaking cat, and Montenegrin “Endlessly Maintain Your Peace,” which makes use of a liberal dose of drink and dynamite to shake up the drained conventions of the marriage comedy.

Throughout her closing remarks, creative director Tiina Lokk talked of the political strain to withdraw sure movies however famous that she had seen Serbians ingesting vodka with Bosnians and Israelis chatting with Iranians. Speaking to Selection, she mentioned: “We’re breaking the viewers data, regardless of the troublesome financial occasions. The occasion is so huge and consists of so many components, however Business, Simply Movies and Pöff Shorts are all leaping larger and additional than they ever have.” Following the pageant, she intends to take three days off earlier than the planning begins for 2024. New concepts embrace a Golden Classics part and a bit dedicated to documentaries in addition to an exploratory concept of an outside cinema with a sauna close by for many who can’t bear the subzero temperatures.