German drama Skin on Skin wins the International Competition, Audience award goes to Orla
The jury for the International Competition consisted of actress Elizaveta Maximová, film and media theorist Kateřina Svatoňová, and British director Charlie Shackleton.
The main prize, which comes with a financial reward of 3,000 euros, went to the German drama Skin on Skin by director Simon Schneckenburger. “This is a highly complex, multilayered film, one whose quality we unanimously recognized on first viewing. Its strength lies in its honesty, brutality and sensitivity, in its articulation of many timeless themes, and its effective use of aesthetic modes,” the jurors wrote in their statement.
Special mention went to Ruletista and Can You Hear Me? “A darkly comic take on the simultaneous security and hopelessness of life on a housing estate that reveals both the absurdity of clinging on to life and the difficulty of letting it go. We appreciated the brutalist composition, the restrained color palette, and the use of expressive, ambient sound,” said the jury on director Lukas Valenta Rinner’s Ruletista, which follows a woman living in Vienna’s Alterlaa housing estate who is intent on ending her life. Polish director Anastazja Naumenko’s animated documentary Can You Hear Me? tells the story of young Nastia, who, via a Zoom call, is trying to teach her mother how to use a computer, but her efforts are hampered by a bad internet connection and old family traumas. According to the jury, the film is “a deceptively simple tale of connection and disconnection – in more ways than one. This film captures the nuances of a mother-daughter relationship with humor and depth. Combining documentary spontaneity with rigorous, precise animation, it tackles everything from tech support to geopolitics in the same intimate tones, showing that everything is personal to someone.”
The Audience Award from the 20th edition of Pragueshorts goes to Marie Lukáčová’s rap fairy tale Orla, which also received a Special Mention in the National Competition.
The film Can You Hear Me? will be available online from March 1 to 22 as part of the festival’s online programme on the streaming platform KVIFF.TV.