41° Sulmona
International
Film Festival

Illustration by Alice Iuri

AWARDS 2023

Best international short film

SHADOW BROTHER SUNDAY

by Alden Ehrenreich

For its large dose of humor and drama, allowing the film to highlight the remarkable performances of its actors at their best. It is an amazing directorial debut for the American actor Alden Ehrenreich – probably drawing inspiration from Paul Thomas Anderson, by the use of the 35mm and the soundtrack of “Punch-Drunk Love”. Although clearly referring to one of the masters of American contemporary cinema, he doesn’t seem to make an appropriation. His directing looks simple, tiny yet powerful, inebriant but also dejected.

Best national short film

SCIARABALLA

by Mino Capuano

This short film knows when it is time to leave, to loose. It knows that you can’t tell a story throughout a single scene, but throughout addition and subtraction – thoroughly choosing when to quit and how to narrate. Sciaraballa begins vaguely but becomes persuading as the narration goes ahead. It tells a bittersweet story – with a sensitive and accurate directing – revealing an ungrammatical and ruffled poetic, efficiently aimed at filling a void.

Best national short film

BLACK EYED DOG

by Alessandro Cino Zolfanelli

A piece imprinted of great sensibility, capable of building a considerable strain in terms of style. With a stop-motion production, challenging both for an economic perspective and for its making in itself.

Best documentary short film

JACK AND SAM

by Jordan Matthew Horowitz

A short film that – although in a rhetoric dimension – stands out for its ability to deepen an important matter such as the memory of the Shoah, particularly relevant at the moment due to the Israelian-Palestinian conflict and the recurring and concerning outbreaks of antisemitism all around the world. The film is touching and moving, rousing the sensibility of the audience in a nontrivial way.

Best animated short film

ROSEMARY A.D. (AFTER DAD)

by Ethan Barrett

With its childlike and primordial aesthetics, this short film is capable of capturing the essence of fatherhood throughout an original stream of consciousness – infusing a deep emotional richness into a real story.

Best environmental short film

DONDE LOS NIÑOS NO SUEÑAN

by Stefano Sbrulli

For its report on the dreadful conditions of Cerro de Pasco (in Peru) – one of the most polluted cities in the world. Its storytelling and documentary device accurately balances humanity and tragedy, formality and empathy, fieldwork and poetic detachment.

Best Abruzzo short film

HAPPY NEW YEAR, JIM

by Andrea Gatopoulos

Throughout the experimental language of cyber realism the director represents virtual reality by using its original source without reconstructing it. This approach develops an innovative narration leading the audience to question themselves on the bounders of real world and virtual world.

Best music video

MÉTÉORES

by Agnès Patron & Morgane Le Péchon

A music video standing out for an impacting and original poetic.

SIFF KIDS

MUSHKA

by Andreas Deja

SIFF studenti

THE ONE NOTE MAN

by George C. Siougas

Motivation of the students from Polo Scientifico Tecnologico Enrico Fermi”:
For the great artistic awareness of this short film capable of representing a particular love story throughout the expansion and restraint of time and rhytm, the subversion of a mechanical routine and the evolution of the music – becoming a fil rouge that leads the audience to live this tender and surprising story first-hand.
Motivation of the students from Polo Umanistico “Ovidio”:
The one note man is a very suggestive short film showing how life can change overnight and take a surprising turn. The main character is able to love again after a period of severe mourning, thanks to music that brings people together. The bassoonist protagonist represents a man getting used – almost addicted – to sorrow. The film shows how suffering feeds solitude and turns human beings into automatons, dragging themselves into their daily existence always carrying out the same dull gestures and actions. But something unpredictable changes the game: it is chance, disrupting the routine and presenting a new possibility to the suffering man, reluctant to seizing the opportunity, even if worthy of one. The films looks like a Christmas tale, with a happy ending leading the man to find comfort, joy and hope into someone.

Best directing

Guilherme Daniel

for APPLAUSE

Somewhere between Larrain and Ingmar Bergman – especially for its vivid work on closeups – it is a short film with a powerful directing, extraordinary actors and an interesting and original editing. Its pure cinematic grammar is capable of rendering a performance solely consisting of 14 minutes of applause. Its style employs the applause both as the editing and the soundtrack, finding its unique and original directorial vision.

Best screenplay

Annie-Claude Caron & Danick Audet

for DEAD CAT

An ingenious short film for the way its writing moves within the comedy: every scene presents a solution providing the joy and enthusiasm of sharing the film with other viewers and recounting it at home after watching it for the first time. The dazed tone of the film makes it hard to find the “right timing”, but this is fixed in a hilarious and brilliant way, simple but clever. All this nourishes our expectations on the first feature-film of these two Canadian filmakers, Ugly, already in the working.

Best actress

Afsaneh Dehrouyeh

for YELLOW

Two performances of disarming but overwhelming simplicity – both able to give significance to every line transcending the value of the short films. The bewilderment of their acting is never flaunted but it rather appears to be consistently devastating. With a significant focus on the condition of Afghan women after the privation of their freedom due to the rise of Taliban government in Afghanistan since April of the past year. If Kendra Sow recalls prestigious oriental actresses of the new millennium (such as the ones from Hou Hsiao-hsien to Wong Kar-wai), the Afghan actress Afsaneh Dehrouyeh almost looks like a feminine embodiment of the paintings by Antonello da Messina – also due to the chromatic directing choices with the use of soft and poetic streaks of blue hues.

Best actor

Vincenzo Nemolato

for THE DELAY

For the Buster Keaton-way of the actor of dealing with a story of 15 minutes without never really saying a word. The versatility of its acting is capable of rendering an extremely interesting anachronistic performance, with the actor carrying the entire film on his back. Outdated, in a stubborn and contrary direction opposed to the present, with the precise intention of acting out of time.

Best cinematography

Ben Mullen

for SHADOW BROTHER SUNDAY

For its remarkable use of 35mm, worthy of the master of American contemporary cinema Paul Thomas Anderson.

Best editing

Russell Beeden

for THE ONE NOTE MAN

For its exceptional editing, based on musical scanning and intersection of framing.

Best soundtrack

Fernando Velázquez

for THE LAST CALL

For an impressive and unique sound mix, capable of highlighting with subtlety the familiar and moral emotions of the short film, reaching a real live musical “performance” to support the images and reinforce their effect.

Carne et Ossa

by Roberto Zazzara

 

November 08, 2023 – h 9 pm

CINEMA PACIFICO – SULMONA

Patagonia

by Simone Bozzelli

 

November 09, 2023 – h 9 pm

CINEMA PACIFICO – SULMONA

Pietro Castellitto

SPECIAL GUEST

 

November 10, 2023 – h 9 pm

CINEMA PACIFICO – SULMONA

Micaela Ramazzotti

SPECIAL GUEST

 

November 11, 2023 – h 9 pm

CINEMA PACIFICO – SULMONA

16:30 >> 19:00
MÉTÉORES by Agnès Patron & Morgane Le Péchon – FRANCIA
WHITE LIE by Eyal Elisha – ISRAELE
DONDE LOS NIÑOS NO SUEÑAN by Stefano Sbrulli – ITALIA
DOG – APARTMENT by Priit Tender – ESTONIA
FRIEND OF A FRIEND by Simon Gualtieri – FRANCIA
FOTO DI GRUPPO by Tommaso Frangini – ITALIA
APPLAUSE by Guilherme Daniel – PORTOGALLO
MARIPOSA by Maurizio Forcella – ITALIA

19:00 >> 21:00
A SHORT TRIP by Erenik Beqiri – FRANCIA
PINOQUO by Federico Demattè – ITALIA
ITS A GRAY, GRAY WORLD by Seyed Mohsen Pourmohseni Shakib – IRAN
SCIARABALLA by Mino Capuano – ITALIA
FORGIVING JOHNNY by Ben Proudfoot – STATI UNITI
LAST CALL by Harry Holland – STATI UNITI

21:00 >> 23:00
CARNE ET OSSA by Roberto Zazzara – ITALIA – Opening film
Talk with the director Roberto Zazzara and the producer Cristiano Di Felice

16:30 >> 19:00
ONE OF THESE DAYS I’LL STEAL YOUR HEART by Pierfrancesco Bigazzi – ITALIA
LE SECOND TOUR by Maxime Cappello – FRANCIA
THE MIRACLE by Nienke Deutz – BELGIO
YELLOW by Elham Ehsas – AFGHANISTAN
THREE TREES by Mathias Richard Horhager & Aaron Hong – CANADA
MILLENNIAL by Eleonora Corica – ITALIA
OUR MALES AND FEMALES by Ahmad Alyaseer – GIORDANIA
HAPPY NEW YEAR, JIM by Andrea Gatopoulos – ITALIA

19:00 >> 21:00
SEA SALT by Leila Basma – LIBANO
BLACK EYED DOG by Alessandro Cino Zolfanelli – ITALIA
FAMILIAR STRANGER by Sara Furrer & Fabian Lütolf – SVIZZERA
DIVE by Aldo Iuliano – ITALIA
HUMO by Rita Basulto – MESSICO
DEAD CAT by Annie-Claude Caron & Danick Audet – CANADA

21:00 >> 23:00
PATAGONIA by Simone Bozzelli – ITALIA
Talk with the director Simone Bozzelli and the actor Andrea Fuorto

16:30 >> 19:00
KING OF SEA by Stéphane Berla – FRANCIA
PLEASE HOLD THE LINE by Tan Ce Ding – MALESIA
THE WINTERKEEPER by Laurence Topham & David Levene – REGNO UNITO
STARLING by Mitra Shahidi – STATI UNITI
THINGS UNHEARD OF by Ramazan Kılıç – TURCHIA
SUBTITLES by David Barbieri – ITALIA
WHERE THE BIRDS CRY by Jakub Wenda – POLONIA
SACRO URBANO by Giovanni Berardi & Simone Paggetti – ITALIA

19:00 >> 21:00
SHADOW BROTHER SUNDAY by Alden Ehrenreich – STATI UNITI
THE DELAY by Mattia Napoli
JACK AND SAM by Jordan Matthew Horowitz – STATI UNITI
IN QUANTO A NOI by Simone Massi – ITALIA
THE ONE NOTE MAN by George C. Siougas – REGNO UNITO
ROSEMARY A.D. (AFTER DAD) by Ethan Barrett – STATI UNITI

21:00 >> 23:00
SIFF TALK: Francesco Alò talks with PIETRO CASTELLITTO

17:30 >> 19:30
Premiazione SULMONA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 41

SIFF TALK: Francesco Alò talks with MICAELA RAMAZZOTTI

21:00 >> 23:00
FELICITÀ by Micaela Ramazzotti – ITALIA

 

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