Special Jury Mention goes to Chasse Royale and Dadyaa: The Woodpeckers of Rotha

The Jury awarded its Special Mention to Chasse Royale, a French short film. The jury were greatly impressed by „the authentic performances of the child actors and by the questioning of filmmakers’ responsibility in recreating and manipulating social reality in front of the camera. The directors Lise Akoka and Romaine Gueret demonstrated the use of film language to its full potential.“ Lise Akoka (France) studied psychology and acting. Through casting and children coaching for the cinema, she discovered the mean to combine two of her principal interests. Romane Gueret (France) after studying film at la Sorbonne, Romane Gueret takes her first steps towards directing by working on sets as an assistant director, a casting assistant or as a camera operator for TV. Chasse Royale is the first film they directed.

The second Special Mention was awarded to Dadyaa. This sixteen minutes long Nepalese film was directed by Pooja Gurung and Bibhusan Basnet (Nepal).  They both live in Kathmandu and have been working together for the past six years. Their first short film The Contagious Apparitions of Dambarey Dendrite (2013, 18 minutes) was screened at several film festivals, including the Prague Short Films Festival. ‘Dadyaa’ is their second short film. Currently, the duo is working on their first feature film The Whole-Timers, produced by Les Films du Tambour. The project was selected at the Atelier of the Cinéfondation of the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 and developed within the Jerusalem Film Lab. The jury appreciated the film for being “a complex and mysterious work., where the ghosts of deported children are recreated as wooden figures in a forest landscape. The film introduces us to a world unknown to common visual and acoustic experience. This is cinema as a strange ritual.“