24rd EUGANEA FILM FESTIVAL OFFICIAL PRIZES

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE-FILM COMPETITION Jury: Alessandra Celesia, Giovanni Cioni, Pauline David Best Feature-Film, including 1000€ cash prize NOCTURNES by Anirban Dutta, Anupama Srinivasan (2024, India, US) NOCTURNES begins as a scientific documentary and takes on the features of fantastic cinema. By following an Indian entomologist, a specialist in moths, in her research in the lush forests at the foothills of the Himalayas, the filmmakers open the doors to a fascinating world and invite us to reconsider the dizzying multiplicity of life. Jury Prize EX-EQUO CANONE EFFIMERO by Gianluca De Serio, Massimiliano De Serio (2025, Italy) CANONE EFFIMERO is a sensitive journey into the musical traditions of different Italian regions. It begins like a cinematic poem, where the sounds of music meet the ancestral tones of dialects, delving deep into the soul of rural communities. And into the depths of our own. We dive into something essential, almost lost, and therefore even more precious. Then the film swells like a river that changes its course and accepts to become the ethnographic work it is meant to be. It captures—again and again—the fragments of this heritage that are more important than the cinematic form itself. They must absolutely be placed upon this Noah’s Ark in order to be saved. JOURNEY INTO GAZA by Piero Usberti (2024, France, Italy) VOYAGE A GAZA, filmed in 2018, begins as the logbook of a young traveler confronted with the discovery of this open-air prison. Very soon, however, director Piero Usberti lets the documentary slip away from him, carried instead by his encounters with a group of young adults who must navigate the reality of their territory. It is 2018, and despite the prevailing sense of confinement, the moment is one of hope and possibilities.

INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM COMPETITION Jury: Marjolaine Parot, Chiara Zuccari, Eva Zurbriggen Best Short Film, including 500€ cash prize FREE THE CHICKENS by Matúš Vizár (2024, Czech Republic, Slovakia) For being at once controversial and irreverent, plural and political, entertaining and engaging for every kind of audience thanks to its different layers of meaning and accessibility. Its multiple perspectives address contemporary issues that are closely connected to our reality and to the ethical questions that each of us is called to reflect on today, broadening the discussion through new and urgent questions to which, in the future, we will probably need to find answers. Jury Prize THE FLOWERS STAND SILENTLY, WITNESSING by Theo Panagopoulos (2024, UK) For its universality across space and time, its cinematic lyricism capable of offering a different perspective on the Palestinian territories – an invitation to grasp their beauty and original spirit in years marked by narratives of war, destruction, and suffering. Through the use of archival material and the ability to rework it and give it new meaning, it overturns the Western colonialist gaze and restores rightful space and identity to this land and to the people who inhabit it, placing them back at the center of discourse and vision, and making them protagonists once again.

SPECIAL PRIZES ZaLab Award including online distribution on the zalabview.org platform VALENTINA E I MUOSTRI by Francesca Scalisi (2024, Switzerland, Italy) By weaving with sensitivity and rigor the personal story of a young woman with the fragile and contradictory landscape of Sicily, through a gaze that is both poetic and political, the film offers an authentic portrait of individual emancipation and collective resistance. It transforms a local context into a universal reflection on how health and the environment are too often sacrificed to the mere logic of profit. The Zalab Prize for Best Documentary – which includes streaming on Zalab View, the platform dedicated to the best of documentary cinema – is awarded to Valentina e i MUOStri by Francesca Scalisi. Audience Award JOURNEY INTO GAZA by Piero Usberti (2024, France, Italy) Kids&Teens’ Award CAPYBARAS by Alfredo Soderguit (2024, France, Uruguay, Chile) Cinemambulante Award, awarded by a jury of students from Festival partner schools IN OUR HANDS by Camillo Isaia Sancisi (2024, Italy, UK) Parco Colli Euganei Award SABRINA GIANNINI For her extraordinary ability to intertwine rigorous journalism with clear and accessible communication, offering a significant contribution to critical reflection on consumption and to the spread of broader environmental awareness. Through careful and impactful investigations, she has shed light on crucial issues such as sustainability, climate change, animal rights, and the food system, encouraging audiences to question themselves and to adopt more responsible behaviors. Her tireless, authentic commitment, concretely oriented toward the protection of the planet, embodies the values of preservation, education, and connection with the entire living world—animal and plant alike—that the Parco Colli Euganei Award seeks to celebrate.