Ljubljana Film Festival announces Kingfisher Award winner

Blue Heron, a quiet reflection on family trauma, mental illness, memory and grief by Sophy Romvari, a Canadian director of Hungarian descent, has won the Kingfisher Award, the main prize at the 36th Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFe).

An international judging panel that selected the winner among ten debut or second films by up-and-coming directors that were shown at the festival described Blue Heron as a deeply moving work of art, CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.

"Patiently and with refined precision, the director uses film as a canvas to capture time but also as a dialectical means for re-viewing an unsettling family situation. In doing so, she doesn't shy away from being as personal and specific as one can possibly be and it is magical when universality is found in this specificity," the Kingfisher jury said.

The jury's special mention went to A Sad and Beautiful World by Lebanese director Cyril Aris, which also won the audience's Dragon award.

"In a region where persistent bomb threats and political turmoil prevent life from moving forward, people find themselves trapped in a repetitive fate ... As communities fragment and people leave their homeland, the film asks what, if anything, remains to hold on to: perhaps a fable-like love, fragile and almost impossible," the judges said.

They praised the film for illuminating this tension with clarity, and emotional precision.

Winners include two Slovenian films

The best short film award went to An Orange from Jaffa by Mohammed Almughanni, a "film that plays like a thriller while dealing with a timely subject and features two incredible acting performances".

The short film jury also awarded special mention to Slovenian filmmaker Jakob Krese for Ceasefire. They were impressed by the film's directness and raw approach.

Another Slovenian auteur, Ester Ivakič won the FIPRESCI Award for her feature debut Ida Who Sang So Badly Even the Dead Rose Up and Joined Her in Song.

"A sensitive and profound film about coming to terms with life and death, entirely carried by the pre-adolescent lead actress, inhabited by her character ... It creates an authentic feeling of childhood in the countryside, woven through with elements of magical realism that reflect the main character's emotions," the jury of the International Federation of Film Critics said about Ivakič's film.

The Slovenian Art Cinema Association Award went to Two Prosecutors by Sergei Loznitsa, a Ukrainian director of Belarusian descent. The film follows a young Soviet prosecutor seeking justice for a prisoner during Stalin's Great Purge.

The jury said that despite its historical distance, the film carries universal resonance, and draws numerous parallels with current events both in Russia and elsewhere in the world.

Photo: Katja Kodba/STA