Short film festival, featuring an eclectic selection, ends with bash
Following an eclectic range of entries this year, the 29th Drama Short Film Festival ended last Saturday with a party at the northern provincial city’s train station after the awards ceremony. The stylistic range of scripts this year spanned from experimental efforts to more conventional pieces of work. Again, there were no documentaries. Angeliki Mylonaki, whose «Bach and Bouzouki» won the festival’s top prize for fiction, was described as a filmmaker with «total control of her expressive means, who manages to highlight dimensions of Greek life and culture.» The second prize in this category was awarded to Ilias Dimitriou for «Prova Paltou.» It also won the festival’s Best Balkan Film award for «the simplicity and zest of its characters.» In the educational section, the first prize was won by Yiannis Bougioukas for «The Cup.» In the Greeks of the World section, Nikias Chrysos emerged the winner with «Hochhaus.» His effort was described by the jury as a work that is «totally balanced in terms of expressive means and homogeneity of style, which deals with cases of violence on society’s fringe in a faceless big city.» Special awards were granted to Yiannis Sakaridis in the fiction section for a film titled «Truth» and Dimitris Tolios, whose «Missing Jib» earned him the Best New Director award. Nikos Synnos won the top prize in the cartoons section for «Animal Behavior.» In the international competition, the jury’s first prize went to Russian filmmaker Alina Rudnitskaya and «Civil Status,» a film based on an outrageous, extreme case of bureaucracy. The second prize was won by Mexican Celso Garcia Romero for «The Water and the Milk,» a film reflecting the hardship of life in a fluent and poetic way. At the end of it all, participating filmmakers, all emerging, and organizers pledged to return for next year’s 30th festival.
