Awards
Awards
Unveiling of the
Winners of the
41st edition
of Le FIFA
The International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) is pleased to announce the winners of its 41st edition, which runs from March 14 to 26, 2023, in theatres and from March 24 to April 2, online. This year, 18 feature films and 16 short films were in the official competition. They competed for one of the six prizes awarded by the jury: the Grand Prize, the Jury Prize, the Best Essay Prize, the Best Portrait Prize, the Best Canadian Feature Film Prize, the Best Short Film Prize.
“It is with great pleasure that we announce the winners of the 41st edition of FIFA. We would like to thank all the members of the Jury for accepting our invitation and participating in the selection of this year’s winners,” said Jacinthe Brisebois, Director of Art Film Programming at Le FIFA.
BEST SHORT FILM PRIZE
PENDULUM by Manuel Mathieu
Canada | 2023 | 11 min | Without dialogue
Available online from March 24 until April 2
“For its authentic narrative, its color palette, sound design and music we give the prize to Pendulum. We particularly appreciated its poetic use of silence and the way it embraces nonlinear time. We were moved by the tangibility of the natural elements and felt as if we were pulled in the film itself. Pendulum stayed with us long after it was over.”
SPECIAL MENTION
WHITE SHADOW directed by Claude Piguet AND Annelore Schneider
Switzerland,England | 2023 | 10 min | English | Subtitles : English
Available online from March 24 until April 2
“In a haunting striking form and an innovative narrative device, White shadow, brings to life the possible physical world of data production. As we move through this fragmented pixeled metaverse, we question our own materiality and the place we will occupy in it.”
BEST ESSAY PRIZE
THE FAITHFUL : THE KING, THE POPE, THE PRINCESS by Annie Berman
United States | 2021 | 1 h 30 min | English, italian | Subtitles : French
Available online from March 24 until April 2
“The prize for Best Essay is awarded to The Faithful, The King, The Pope, The Princess, a singular investigation into idolatry and the power of images. The jury wishes to salute the intimate commitment and research of the director, who was able to touch, in a hollow way, a feeling of universal solitude that is difficult to grasp.”
BEST PORTRAIT PRIZE
MUSIC UNDER THE SWASTIKA — THE MAESTRO AND THE CELLIST OF AUSCHWITZ by Christian Berger
Germany | 2022 | 1 h 26 min | English | Subtitles : English
Available online from March 24 until April 2
“A necessary film that questions the past while shedding light on our times. A double portrait of musical figures under the Nazi regime. An update thanks to the colorization of exceptional archives. A demonstration of the universal power of music that recontextualizes the unavoidable question of the impossible separation of the work and the artist.”
BEST CANADIAN FILM PRIZE
OKAY! (THE ASD BAND FILM) by Mark Bone
Canada | 2022 | 1 h 26 | English | Subtitles : English
Available online from March 24 until April 2
“The jury wanted to reward a film that is an incursion into the lives of young people who use music as a common language to express their differences. A film with a varied and lively rhythm that allows us to approach the individual realities of this group of friends and their loved ones who surround them and support their efforts. A moving film that offers us the gift of optimism, art and passion as a driving force: nothing is impossible.”
JURY PRIZE
HIDDEN LETTER by Violet Du Feng
Germany, United States, China, Norway | 2022 | 1 h 28 min | Mandarin | Subtitles : English
“A film about memory and transmission, about the struggle to preserve the writing of a century-old clandestine language, an act of resistance to the all-powerful patriarchy. This secret language has allowed thousands of women to communicate with each other and to create a network of solidarity and support, and today constitutes the only traces of an unauthorized memory. An intimate yet powerful film that, in its simplicity, brings us closer to these women and expands the boundaries.”
GRAND PRIZE
INSIDE MY HEART by Saskia Boddeke
Netherlands | 2022 | 1 h 26 min | Dutch | Subtitles : English
Available online from March 24 until April 2
“The jury wanted to reward with the Grand Prize of the Montreal Art Film Festival, a film of great artistic mastery whose originality, sumptuous images, brilliant and fluid device, quality and accuracy of treatment take us into a unique poetic fresco, managing to break down the boundaries between normality and exception, between art and life, fiction and reality. And at the heart of this film, because it 2qais indeed to our heart that we are addressing; exceptional performers, who fascinate us, subjugate us, dazzle us. A tribute to theater and the power of imagination.”
Trophies of the 41st Edition
The International Festival of Films on Art is committed to promoting Quebec’s artistic creation and wishes to highlight the talent of local artists. This year, for the design of the trophies of the 41st edition, the choice fell on Jérémie St-Onge, glass blower. Each trophy was mouth-blown in Montreal by the artist. His practice, while respecting the traditions learned from his masters, allows for a more instinctive creative approach.
The result: unique and sublime pieces with an unpredictable character, both aesthetic and practical to celebrate the best of film on art.