Husek by Daniella Seggiaro
The FIDMarseille International Film Festival, recognized as a supporter of new cinemas across both documentary and fiction, has announced the winners of its 32nd edition which took place in person from July 19 to 25, 2021. Among the winners, two Latin American films took home prizes and three received special mentions.
The feature-length work Husek, the second film from Argentine director Daniella Seggiaro, received a Special Mention for the Georges de Beauregard International Prize. The prize is sponsored by the post-production company Vidéo de Poche (who will make a DCP copy of the prize-winning film, Declan Clarke’s Saturn and Beyond). Seggiaro’s work, which had its World Premiere at FIDMarseille, intentionally blurs the line between fiction and documentary to depict the tension present in the filmmaker’s home region, the province of Chaco, between the native community and the local government.
Los Fundadores, the debut feature film from Mexican director Diego Hernandez, received the special mention for the First Film Prize, coming second to Erika Etangsalé’s In the Billowing Night. Hernandez’s hybrid documentary hovers between fiction and reality, with the director himself playing the main character, as he weaves a story of two students in order to discuss issues of public policy, theatrics, and representation.
Lumbre / Embers, the mid-length docu-fiction hybrid by Mexican director Santiago Mohar Volkow, received the Centre National des Arts Plastiques Prize, awarded each year to a film from the International, French and First Films competitions by the First Film and Cnap jury. Modelled on a musical fugue, the first part of the piece – an accidental death – holds the force of the work’s structure which gathers steam as it unravels, images of concentric circles herald each fragment. Lumbre had its World Premiere at FIDMarseille and is Mohar Volkow’s third film.
The short film La sangre es blanca by Venezuelan director Óscar Vincentelli took home the Flash Competition Prize, awarded by a jury made up of French film critic Jacques Kermabon, Canadian director Sofia Bohdanowicz, and Spanish director Pela del Álamo. The Spanish-Venezuelan co-production is based on the negatives of the 33 La Tauromaquia engravings made by Goya in 1816, attempting to record death and render it visible by utilizing a thermal camera. The film also had its World Premiere at the festival.
Finally, the Colombian film Más allá de la noche by director Manuel Ponce León de Restrepo received a special mention under the same prize, likewise in its World Premiere. The experimental short film takes inspiration from the provocative poem by Colombian poet Raul Gómez Jattin, whose first line provides the title of the work. The text stirs together all the ingredients of memory, which Ponce de León Restrepo kneads into a film. He makes the poem his own, incorporating his own family into it, and takes it on a journey of interwoven time loops.
