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The 20th Camden International Film Festival has wrapped the in-person portion of the event in coastal Maine with the announcement of awards in several categories, including one that will launch a filmmaker into the Oscar race.
Kix, a documentary shot in Budapest, Hungary, won CIFF’s prestigious Harrell Award. Bálint Révész and Dávid Mikulán directed the film that charts the trajectory of Sanyi from “unruly” 8-year-old to young adult in need of a second chance.
“While there are many impressive films that give us a bird’s eye view of the failure of institutions and society, [Kix] showed us what it was like from the ground,” the Harrell jury, comprised of Poh Si Teng, Bing Liu and Courtney Sexton, wrote. “It was delicate and raw, and captured humanity over time.”
The jury also awarded a special mention to Elizabeth Lo’s Mistress Dispeller, which made its U.S. premiere at Camden after premiering at the Venice Film Festival and then heading to TIFF. Jurors praised that film as “a stranger than fiction story told with a masterful narrative craft while maintaining a nuanced approach to each protagonists’ perspective.”
CIFF’s Cinematic Vision Award went to A Fidai Film, directed by Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari. The jury, comprised of Jessica Beshir, Nicolas Pereda and Lukas Brašiškis, saluted Aljafari’s documentary “for its cinematic confrontation with the visual erasure of Palestinian history. In his film Aljafari masterfully transforms the archival Palestinian footage looted and re-contextualized by the Israeli army into a defiant act of filmic resistance. Through sensible and inventive editing and a profound understanding of the material’s historical weight, Aljafari’s film not only exposes the colonial violence but also reasserts the right of the Palestinian people to control their own narrative. We see A Fidai Film as an important reminder of the resilience of the colonized memory and the power of pure cinema to reclaim it.”
The Cinematic Vision jury awarded a special mention to Klara Tasovska’s I’m Not Everything I Want to Be, “an emotional exploration of Libuše Jarcovjakova’s life and work under a repressive regime, capturing moments of vulnerability, resistance, and self-reflection. Through the use of Jarcovjakova’s still photographs and her own diary narration, Tasovska crafts a unique film that transcends the boundaries of the traditional documentary portrait. Drawing from the power of photography to construct and challenge one’s memory, the film meditates on the relentless pursuit of self-understanding, echoing the film title’s reminder that one’s becoming is both personal and political, unfinished yet vital.”
Both A Fidai Film and I’m Not Everything I Want to Be are available for U.S.-based viewers to stream via CIFF’s Virtual Festival from September 16-30. The virtual program includes 11 features from this year’s CIFF slate as well as a retrospective of 23 features and shorts from the past two decades of festival programming.
CIFF’s Audience Award went to Patrice: The Movie, directed by Ted Passon and produced by Kyla Harris, Innbo Shim and Emily Spivack. The film, from ABC News Studios, is described as a “documentary rom com” about “the next frontier of marriage equality: disability.”
“We were honored to present the U.S. premiere of Patrice: The Movie and thrilled to see it receive a thunderous, extended standing ovation,” said Sean Flynn, co-founder of the Points North Institute, which puts on CIFF as well as other artists’ programs (during the festival, he was announced as PNI’s new artistic director). “It’s a deeply caring, heartfelt film that exemplifies the power of nonfiction cinema to create shared experiences that make us laugh and cry and embrace love as a tool for liberation.”
Patrice: The Movie will be released on Hulu on September 30.
Diary of a Sky, directed by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, won the CIFF award for Best Documentary Short Film, automatically qualifying it for Oscar consideration. Jurors Elaisha Stokes, Dessane Lopez Cassell, and Matthew LaPaglia commented, “A captivating feat of reporting, Diary of a Sky surfaces the nuances of living under the shadow of settler violence. With its visceral sound design and dizzying footage, the anxiety induced by an unquiet atmosphere is tempered by the insistent act of observing.”
The shorts jury gave a special mention to You Can’t Get What You Want But You Can Get Me, directed by Samira Elagoz and Z Walsh, calling it, “Irreverent and yet deeply felt, a refreshing love story centering trans joy that’s hot and intimate like a spit in the mouth.”
Vetsibule won the Points North Pitch, a “multi-generational story about sexual health, pleasure, and agency” directed by Riley Hooper and produced by Bryn Silverman and Caitlin Mae Burke. “One of the most popular events at the festival, the Pitch is part of the Points North Fellowship, a filmmaker development program supporting 6 feature documentaries in development, presented by The deNovo Initiative.” The Points North Pitch Award includes in-kind post production services from Modulus Studios valued at $10,000.
An industry panel of eight leading documentary funders also gave special recognition to Syrian documentary House No. 7, directed by Rama Abdi and produced by Hazar Yazji, who pitched remotely since they were unable to secure visas for travel to the United States.
The 20th edition of CIFF included 31 features, 22 short films, and two immersive experiences from 37 countries around the world. The festival notes that 60 percent of the features in the program were either U.S., North American or World Premieres, including several new works coming straight to Maine following recent premieres at the Venice and Toronto film festivals, along with award-winners and standout films from Sundance, Berlinale, CPH:DOX, Visions du Réel festivals and others. For the second year, the CIFF’s two major competitions — the Harrell Award and Cinematic Vision competitions — are comprised entirely of films making their U.S. or North American premieres at the festival.
