
AWARD NOMINATIONS 2021
BEST FEATURE FILM COMPETITION

Rotten ears (Zgniłe uszy)
Dir. Piotr Dylewski
60' • Poland • 2019
ROTTEN EARS is a tale of a somewhat premature marital crisis cause by unfulfilled expectations and lack of communication. Yanek and Marzena will face their deepest fears under the supervision of an unconventional therapist whose healing plan gets out of control. Reality will seem blurred, suppressed pretensions and understatements will turn against the protagonists.

The Battle of Shangri-lá
Dir. Severino Neto & Rafael de Carvalho
99' • Brazil • 2019
João searches for his biological mother who abandoned him almost over 40 years ago. In a physical and emotional journey, through a deep Brazil, little by little, this woman’s past comes to light and João’s convictions and prejudices break taboos. The proximity between mother and son is intense, painful, and fierce, bringing up anguishes and revelations which will affect both their lives forever.

Fortress (Fortezza)
Dir. Ludovica Andò & Emiliano Aiello
72' • Italy • 2019
Entirely filmed inside the Civitavecchia House of Detention, with the protagonists and co-authors the prisoners themselves, Fortezza is the reinterpretation of one of the most important novels of the '900: The Desert of the Tartars by Dino Buzzati. Three soldiers arrive in a solitary military garrison without lacking any defensive function. Here time is firm and marked by strict regulations, dynamics of power, leisure and ingrained habits. In the vain expectation of an enemy who will not come, the soldiers consume itself between the need to make sense of their permanence and resist to the attraction that this place operates on them.

PRIMAVERA
Dir. Carlos Porto de Andrade Júnior
112' • Brazil • 2018
Moments before a father's death, all of his family memories are transferred to his son through a dream. This story is told in parallel with an investigation by two cousins who are writing a book about a family. All that is left are fragmented evidences, destroyed photos and the oral history. The narrative develops a different visual language to guide us through this saga about an unusual family made up of contradictory versions. The ancestor, an Englishman living at the end of the 18th century, arrives in Brazil and gets married to a Portuguese lady, owner of an extensive piece of land. Their heirs will become the protagonists in this history of conflicts, legends and mysteries. Love will lead to death but the supernatural will inspire love again.