WINNERS

Best Animation Winner

Two Balloons

Two adventurous lemurs navigate their dirigibles halfway around the world to a place where happenstance and fate threaten to disrupt their reunion.

Mark C. Smith

Best Cinematographer Winner

One Sunny Day

On Ross’ 14th birthday, he wishes for a life-long dream: to watch the sunrise on a beach. This a lofty aspiration for Ross, who suffers from Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP)—a genetic disorder that makes his skin intolerable to the sun's ultraviolet light. That night, Ross meets a girl named Claire, who just moved to town. After telling her about his dream, she advises him to “just go for it.” But shortly after leaving him, Claire researches Ross’ condition. Now realizing the severity of XP, she runs back to warn him not to go; but Ross has already left the house. Enlisting the help of Ross’ father, Michael, they set out hoping to find Ross before it’s too late.

Minjae Chang

Best Comedy Feature Winner

Love Possibly

A rom-com obsessed virgin finally finds a fiancee on a Russian bride site, but he soon realizes Hollywood rom-com rules don't apply when you're trying to make a mail-order bride love you.

Michael Boccalini, Che Grant

Best Comedy Short Winner

O.I.

Barry has a unique problem. He came up with a truly original idea. And sharing it has consequences…

N'cee van Heerden

Best Director Winner

Lullaby

The name of this short film 安 is a Chinese Character. From how it is written represents A women (女）under a rooftop (宀）which means women stay at home. which makes people think of SAFE, HAPPY, CALM AND PEACEFUL, etc, this is what actually 安 means. However this word, to the content of this film, it is kind of irony. This is the same reason we chose the English name " Lullaby". Here is a little background of this story. There were a girl and a boy sent by their parents to came to a foreign country for studying then they stayed. They met they married, they only have themselves but no other family around them. Then now, they are having a newborn with them. Everything seems perfect. But this new mother has no experience at all of how to raise a baby and she is having a girl; this new Father who has been out of the house since this baby was born, he is avoiding troubles and refusing to go home. Because she is having a girl, their very typical hoary dogmas Chinese parents think this is not worth them to come to help them. This new mother unfortunately after suddenly not be able to produce any more breast milk, then suffering deeply from the Postpartum Depression. Lots of people heard of this sickness, but most people think this PPD thing will go away soon or could not be that serious. So this short film is actually aiming at bringing more attention to those new families, especially those new mothers who really need support.

Ray Du

Best Drama Short Winner

Whoever Was Using This Bed

A married couple is woken in the dead of night by a mysterious phone call. Unable to sleep, they are drawn into an unsettling examination of their fears and desires. Based on a story by Raymond Carver (Birdman), WHOEVER WAS USING THIS BED is a multi-award-winning short psychological drama starring Jean-Marc Barr (The Big Blue), Radha Mitchell (Man on Fire), and Jane Birkin (Blow Up).

Andrew Kotatko

Best Experimental Winner

Transient Passengers

Searching for the woman who stole his golden pocket watch, a time-obsessed office clerk gets locked inside a cubist labyrinth where he revisits three memories that make him reconsider his deepest traumas and obsessions.

Natalia Hermida

Best Feature Documentary Winner

Trace

Public accounts on the 2015 European refugee crisis covered the issue through an individualizing gaze placed on the refugee subject. The refugee in suffering, an experience witnessed by us all, as a spectacle, from the distance: Images of crowded tents, boats caring overflowing numbers of people, children dying on Mediterranean shores. "Trace" turns the gaze outwards, scrutinizing the “space” of the crisis in which people seek refuge. On the one hand, there is the everyday of the “space.” The ordinary Greek island life with not much to do in the early hours of the day, with people anchoring their fishing boats, some going for a swim, some strolling for a walk. On the other hand, the island space changed from hosting refugees’ presence to hosting their absence. Trace figuratively marks the absence of the refugee crisis by symbolically creating a visual topography of the space containing the crisis, and juxtaposed to narrative accounts of people involved in the crisis.

Raluca Bejan

Best Feature Film Winner

Buck Run

Upon the death of his mother, Karen (Amy Hargreaves), 15-year-old Shaw Templeton (Nolan Lyons) is forced into the care of his estranged, shame-addled father, William (James Le Gros), who lives modestly in a hunting cabin far outside town. As Shaw struggles to find a father in William, he seeks a funeral for his mother. Set in small town Pennsylvania, 'Buck Run' is an atmospheric, insightful drama about the tumult of teen grief and the fallibility of parental love. It is a look through a peephole at Director Nick Frangione's deeply personal story.

Nick Frangione

Best Greek Film Winner

The Surface of Things

There is an urban myth in Athens about Errinyos, the ancient underground river, that no one ever saw except four teenage girls in the 1980s at the “neighbourhood of hell”. Today an anthropologist who researches on the myth, locates three of these girls, now in their forties, and their former teacher, and has to face four testimonies on the mysterious appearance of the river. Through extracts of letters, recordings and interviews, they narrate the tragic story which happened thirty years ago and marked their own lives as well as the city’s collective memory.

Nancy Biniadaki

Best Music (in a film) Winner

Petit Four

A married couple come to a crossroads when one suspects the other of having an affair with a ghost.

Kalainithan Kalaichelvan

Best Music Video Winner

Rooftops

The Rooftops music video is a story about a boy in love, centered around the lyric "Rollin' like it's high school fantasy". The video was created and produced independently by four best friends, who are listed as producers. This is also Odeya's directorial debut.

Odeya Rush

Best Producer Winner

Cassidy Red

Cassidy Red is a western romance set against the backdrop of the 19th century American southwest, that follows the headstrong daughter of a prostitute who returns to her hometown seeking vengeance against the corrupt lawman she believes murdered her lover.

Matt Knudsen

Best Screenplay Winner

Time Police: the Curious Case of the Devil Dogs

After the Time Thieves ditch a dinosaur egg, the boy who finds it soon realizes that he can’t keep a growing dinosaur a secret forever. Meanwhile, the Time Police keep scouring the historical records for a missing dinosaur. Why hasn’t a dinosaur living in 21st. Century Texas made the news?

Best Short Documentary Winner

Neither Roses, Nor Daisies

What happens to the world and beauty when we do not see or do not see anymore? As the portraits of sensory experiences mingle with one another, the film suggests its suspended moments as a space for aesthetic questioning.

Jeunghae Yim

Best Short Film Winner

Emma

Emma (9) and her Mum recently moved to a new flat in London. Mum suffers from depression. Emma takes care of both herself and her mother, struggling between being a child and looking after her Mum’s needs.

Sophie Gueydon

Best Student Director Winner

Blue Noise

Rachel, a successful university swimmer, finds the courage to speak out against her abusive coach after a horrible realization.

Jonah Moshammer

Best Writer Winner

The Greek Passage

Giulio Seta’s final mission in Iraqi as a war photojournalist ended dramatically. Now in therapy for PTSD, Giulio decides to travel to a remote Greek island. A middle-east refugees shipwreck, a face-off with human-trafficker Thierry, the theft of a caïque and a friendship with Captain Nikolas and the troubled Clara lead Giulio to get back in the game and face his demons.

Special Mention Winner

Exodus

Sofia and Aristidis are having dinner talking about their upcoming marriage. But an unexpected meeting will change everything.

Alkiviadis Papadopoulos