Visions du Réel 2017

Festival International de Cinéma
21.04.2017 to 29.04.2017
Nyon
Taste of Cement

Award winner of the International Jury: "Taste of Cement" (© Visions du Réel 2017)

For the 13th time an interreligious jury awarded prizes at the festival Visions du Réel in Nyon. The jury, composed of a Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim member, will took its choices among the 19 films of the international competition for long films. The Interreligious Film Prize, endowed with CHF 5000, went to "Los ojos de la mar" (The Gaze of the Sea), directed by José Álvarez from Mexico. In addition, the jury awarded a Commendation to "No Place for Tears" by Reyan Tuvi from Turkey. The International Jury decided upon best film for "Taste of Cement" by Ziad Kalthoum. The Syrian born director who lives today in Berlin portrays workers from Syria building houses in Beirut whilst there home country is devastated by civil war.

All in all, the festival will screen 179 films in twelfe sections. For the 7th, and the last time Luciano Barisone as artistic director has selected the programme. In his preface to the actual edition of the festival he choose love - "Agape" -  as its key term.  "Indeed, we make images because we love. Even the horrors represented make us feel—in their total lack of humanity—the need to love. And with this love (for film and for humanity), we fight against exclusion and against a fragmentary vision of the world. And we recognise only a single identity, that of human beings, things among things, at the same time equal and different."

French director Alain Cavalier will be honoured for his lifetime achievement as MaÎtre du Réel. On this occasion a retrospective of his film and a Masterclass are scheduled.

As opening film the festival shows the Chilean film "Los niños" (The Grown-Ups) by Maite Alberdi about a group of eople with Down's syndrome, their wishes for independence and their limitations.

Link: Festival website

 

Awards

The Gaze of the Sea
Directed by:
2017

The Gaze of the Sea glows with beauty and grace. Giving voice to a community of Mexican fishers struck by loss and grief, the film shows us what it is to be human. In these fragile men and women, forgiveness and redemption materialize. The film illuminates how love empowers them to overcome pain and find reconciliation with each other and with nature.

Directed by:
2017

As war rages in Kobane, the inhabitants of a neighbouring Kurdish village resist oppression and brutality armed only with their sense of solidarity, identity and dignity. A powerful film of love and hope.

More about the festival

The 48th Swiss documentary film festival Visions du Réel was the seventh and last one led by the artistic director Luciano Barisone, an impressive ending in so many ways.