Georges Salameh, Jury member @ Videoex Festival – Zurich (21-29 May 2011)
Results
1st Prize (ex-aequo)
VIDEOCARTOGRAPHIES : AIDA, PALESTINE (TILL ROESKENS) – France
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DISORIENT (LAURENT VAN LANCKER / FLORENCE AIGNER) – Belgium
We have decided to award the first prize ex-aequo to two brave films which each in their own way experiment with storytelling and with the absence of images. Both films equally share a sense of internal rhythm and pacing, as well as a strong correspondence between the chosen formal strategies and the subject matter that is being dealt with.
Although both films address important themes – migration the one, the palestinian question the other, and the notion of “home” both – personal stories always come first, taking us on a pilgrimage from the individual to the collective. Both works raise questions without imposing answers, bringing an awareness of the psychology of enclosure, which reaches far beyond the enclosure which is directly depicted, and in the case of Till Roeskens’s work, beyond the Palestinian/Israeli situation.
Special Mention
BECAUSE WE ARE VISUAL (OLIVIA ROCHETTE & GERARD-JAN CLAES) – Belgium(Trailer)
From an ocean of images, Olivia Rochette and Gerard-Jan Claes offer us tiny drops, encounters with vloggers throughout the world who in their desperation and faith move us and manage to reach beyond their computer screens, and even beyond the cinematic screen. A work on the edge, without ever falling on the trap of voyeurism, the fragile beauty of BECAUSE WE ARE VISUAL is at the same time the result of a strong element of chance and of a highly complex editing, which open up spaces for magic and in a dreamlike way recall the addictive experience we can have of the internet. To end, we would like to celebrate with this special mention the youth of the two filmmakers and the ambition of their proposal.