Beata Bubenec’s Flight of a Bullet Wins Open City Award as Award Winners Announced for the Open City Documentary Festival

Open City Documentary Festival 2018 is delighted to announce the winners of this years’ Awards at the festival Award Ceremony on Saturday 8th September.

The Festival Awards this year are:
• Best UK Short Award, supported by the British Council
• Emerging International Filmmaker Award
• The Open City Award
• Border Crossings - the festival’s initiative to connect filmmakers with academics, encouraging collaboration and the opportunity to create documentary films based on research stories. Six teams were selected to pitch live during Open City Documentary Festival 2018.

WINNERS:

Open City Award
Winner: Flight of a Bullet by Beata Bubenec
"This palpably dangerous film is an unforgettable experience. It reflects a combination of the filmmaker’s capacity to be present, intuitive and to fully utilise the digital camera – revealing a new form of observational filmmaking as both durational and dramatic. It captures the disturbing carnivalesque of military operations – and the undecidable nature of the filmmaker’s role in this, where her camera is both witness and weapon/shield."
Honourable mention to The Swing by Cyril Aris for its "impeccable judged framing and profoundly touching meditation on mortality and morality."

Emerging International Filmmaker Award
Winner: Angkar by Neary Adeline Hay
"Woven together with an unusual master of craft, this film is a remarkable intergenerational dialogue between father and daughter that ties together strands of history, place, loss, justice and memory. It is a brave exploration of the past that also shines a light on the present. "

Best UK Short Award
Winner: The Mess by Dorothy Allen-Pickard
"The Best UK Short Award goes to The Mess for its visceral and empathetic portrayal of mental illness. The jury was impressed by its creative and collaborative approach to making an otherwise mental state visible."

Border Crossings
Winner: Lifeblood
Second Prize: The Affordability Game
The Border Crossings Judging panel featured: Chloe Trayner, Associate Director - Open City Documentary Festival; Kim Longinotto, filmmaker & Riete Ooerd, filmmaker.

The Best UK Short Award recognises the film that demonstrates the most engaging, innovative and compelling approach to short-form documentary. A film that would best represent UK talent at an international level and that demonstrates promise for the filmmaker’s future career. The jury features: Stephanie Spray (Chair), Laure Bonville, Amar Ediriwira, Julia Nottingham and Lynn Nwokorie.

The Emerging International Filmmaker Award is presented to a first or second time feature filmmaker who displays new and exciting approaches to storytelling, and who exhibits commitment to their choices and a clear directorial vision. This year’s jury includes: Tessa Boerman (Chair), Luciano Barisone, Cecile Emeke, Chiara Marañón and Tadhg O’Sullivan.

The Open City Award is awarded to the film that exemplifies an author in control of their subject matter, craft and story - matching content and form in a powerful and persuasive fashion. The jury is chaired by Sophie Fiennes, alongside Beatrice Gibson, Nelly Ben Hayoun, May Adadol Ingawanij and Mehelli Modi.

FULL AWARDS NOMINEES AND JURIES

Best UK Short Award, supported by the British Council
The Best UK Short Award recognises the film that demonstrates the most engaging, innovative and compelling approach to short-form documentary. A film that would best represent UK talent at an international level and that demonstrates promise for the filmmaker’s future career.

Nominees

The Mess
Dorothy Allen-Pickard | UK | 2017 | 4’
Some of These Days
Vincent Förster | UK, Germany | 2018 | 16’
Absent Wound
Maryam Tafakory | UK, Iran | 2018 | 10’
Missed Call
Victoria Mapplebeck | UK | 2018 | 20’
Season of Goodbyes
Philippa Ndisi-Herrmann | UK, Kenya | 2018 | 14’
Plastic Man
Yulia Kovanova | UK | 2017 | 10’
Then a Hero Comes Along
Marlon Rouse Tavares | UK | 2018 | 20’
Landline
Matt Houghton | UK | 2017 | 12’

Jury
Stephanie Spray (Chair)
Stephanie Spray is a non-fiction filmmaker and professor of Critical Media Practices at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her work conjugates ethnographic methodologies with a critical nonfiction media practice, for cinema and art exhibition contexts. Her films have screened at NYFF, Art of the Real, TIFF, CPH:DOX, Viennale, RIDM, AFI, Rotterdam, Open City Documentary Festival, BAFICI, and Anthology Film Archives, and museums such as MoMA, the Whitney, the National Gallery, and Louisiana MoMA. The last film in Stephanie’s Nepal series, Manakamana, is in the permanent collection of MoMA New York and won numerous awards, including a Golden Leopard at Locarno.

Laure Bonville
Laure Bonville is a film programmer at the BFI London Film Festival. Laure oversees the selection of documentary films and takes part in the selection of French work. Before moving to London she worked at both the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival and Filmfest Hamburg. Growing up in Clermont-Ferrand nurtured her love of moving images, short films and film festival life. She holds a masters in cultural studies and a degree in modern languages. She is currently on maternity leave.

Amar Ediriwira
Amar Ediriwira is creative director for Boiler Room’s new film platform 4:3 (dubbed as Netflix for the underground). He was previously commissioning editor and a curator for audio-visual arts institute The Vinyl Factory, where he collaborated with musicians and artists including Moor Mother, Elysia Crampton, Chino Amobi, Toxe and NMO. Amar is also a journalist published in The Guardian, Dazed, The Wire, Little White Lies and FACT, and he also presented a show on Soho Radio.

Julia Nottingham
Julia Nottingham is a London based independent producer working in fiction, non-fiction and the space in between. Her past credits include Skate Kitchen (dir: Crystal Moselle, Sundance 2018), Kingdom of Us (dir: Lucy Cohen (LFF 2017, Grierson Award for Best Documentary), Trophy (dir: Shaul Schwarz, Sundance 2017), All These Sleepless Nights (dir: Michał Marczak, Directing Prize in the World Cinema Documentary competition, Sundance 2016), and The Possibilities Are Endless (dir: Edward Lovelace and James Hall, SXSW 2014).

Lynn Nwokorie
Starting out in production for feature film, commercials and museum projects in the US and UK, Lynn Nwokorie has since worked across exhibition and distribution for national festivals and organisations including: BFI London Film Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest, the BFI and the Independent Cinema Office. Recently she has focused on cultural programming and increased access of independent film to national audiences, with a concerted focus on cultivating socially impactful documentary filmmaking at The Doc Society. Recently appointed as BFI Film Fund Officer, Lynn focuses on developing and supporting UK documentary filmmakers as well as continuing programming for festivals and special events.

Emerging International Filmmaker Award
The Emerging International Filmmaker Award is presented to a first or second time feature filmmaker who displays new and exciting approaches to storytelling, and who exhibits commitment to their choices and a clear directorial vision.

Nominees

Angkar
Neary Adeline Hay | 2018 | France | 71’

Those Who Come, Will Hear
Simon Plouffe | 2017 | Canada | 77’

Home of the Resistance
Ivan Ramljak | 2018 | Croatia | 49’

The Best Thing You Can Do With Your Life
Zita Erffa | 2018 | Germany, Mexico | 93’

Jury
Tessa Boerman (Chair)
Tessa Boerman is an independent Dutch documentary filmmaker, programmer and cultural advisor. Her work focuses on issues of representation, diversity and inclusion. For International Film Festival Rotterdam Tessa programmed Black Rebels focusing on international films about and predominantly by black people navigating the cultural divide since the origin of cinema. With the Dutch Directors Guild she advocated for cultural diversity and inclusion in the Dutch Film and TV industry. Her film Zwart Belicht; Painted Black painfully reveals the long history of exclusion; how even what was meant to be seen, stayed unseen for centuries.

Luciano Barisone
Having started his career as a film-club host, journalist and film critic, since 1997 Luciano Barisone has contributed to numerous international film festivals, including the Locarno International Film Festival and the Venice International Film Festival. In 2002, he founded the Alba Infinity Festival, for which he acted as artistic director until 2007; then from 2008 to 2010 he was artistic director at Festival dei Popoli in Florence. From 2011 to 2017 he was the director of Visions du Réel in Nyon. He has served on numerous festival juries including Cannes, FID Marseille and IDFA.

Cecile Emeke
Cecile Emeke is a director, writer and artist from London, working in film, television and moving image. In 2014, Cecile created online documentary series Strolling, and Ackee & Saltfish. Both projects had a huge cultural impact and established Cecile as one of the UK’s strongest emerging directorial voices. Cecile was selected as a Broadcast Hotshot and won the Screen Nation Vanguard Award. Her most recent short film The Ancestors Came was commissioned as part of Tate Modern’s 'Soul of a Nation’ exhibition, and she recently directed for Insecure (HBO) and Idris Elba’s In The Long Run (Sky).

Chiara Marañón
Chiara Marañón is the director of programming for global online cinematheque MUBI, looking after the curation for the platform and theatrical distribution in the UK (including titles such as: Arabian Nights (Miguel Gomes, 2015) and Baden Baden (Rachel Lang, 2016)). As a filmmaker, Chiara worked with Abbas Kiarostami on The Girl in The Lemon Factory and has been mentored by the likes of Lucrecia Martel, Carlos Reygadas and Jaime Rosales. She studied film at Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona, the International Film and Television School of Cuba (EICTV) and the University of Westminster in London.

Tadhg O’Sullivan
Tadhg O’Sullivan is a director-producer, editor and sound artist. His first feature film Yximalloo (co-directed with Feargal Ward) won the Prix Premiere at FiD Marseille in 2014. His second feature The Great Wall screened at many festivals including RIDM and MoMA Doc Fortnight. He has worked as an editor with Pat Collins on Song of Granite and Silence; and Feargal Ward on The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid. Tadhg recently made an audio piece for BBC Radio 3 about Chernobyl and life after humans; and is currently making a film about the moon.

The Open City Award
The Open City Award is awarded to the film that exemplifies an author in control of their subject matter, craft and story - matching content and form in a powerful and persuasive fashion.

Nominees

Baronesa
Juliana Antunes | 2017 | Brazil | 71’

Casanova Gene
Luise Donschen | 2018 | Germany | 67’

Flight of a Bullet
Beata Bubenec | 2017 | Russia, Latvia | 81’

The Swing
Cyril Aris | 2018 | Lebanon | 74’

Jury
Sophie Fiennes (Chair)
Sophie Fiennes' feature documentaries include the acclaimed Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami, which premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2017; her collaborations with Slavoj Zizek, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006), and The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012); and her portrait of German artist Anselm Kiefer, Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, which premiered in Cannes in 2010. Her first feature documentary, Hoover Street Revival, was released theatrically in 2003. Sophie was awarded a NESTA fellowship in 2001 to develop her innovative approach to film, and won the Arte France Cinema Award in 2008.

Beatrice Gibson
Beatrice Gibson is a Franco-British artist living and working in London. Beatrice has twice won the Rotterdam International Film Festival Tiger Award for Short Film, for A Necessary Music (2009), and The Tiger’s Mind (2013). She was shortlisted for the Whitechapel Max Mara Art Prize for Women (2013-15) and the Jarman Award for artist’s film (2013); and won the 2015 Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel (2015). Her films have shown at prestigious venues and film festivals including: CPH:DOX, Toronto International Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives NYC and the Serpentine Gallery London.

Nelly Ben Hayoun
Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun is a multi-award-winning French designer and filmmaker who creates multidimensional experiential projects at the intersection of science, theatre, politics and design. Dubbed the "Willy Wonka of Design", her projects aim to bring the sublime to life; and her laboratory, NBH Studios, is on a mission to bring chaos to the world. Her various roles include chief of experiences at WeTransfer, designer of experiences at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, advisor to the United Nations Virtual Reality Labs and advisory board member at AIGA (American Institute for Graphic Arts).

May Adadol Ingawanij
Dr. May Adadol Ingawanij is a moving image theorist, teacher and curator. She co-directs the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) at University of Westminster. May writes on moving image, art, film history, and Southeast Asia for a wide range of publications; and is writing a book on animism, moving image performances, and contemporary art in Thailand and Southeast Asia. Some recent curatorial projects include: Lav Diaz: Journeys (London, 2017) and On Attachments and Unknowns (with Sa Sa Bassac, Phnom Penh, January 2017)

Mehelli Modi
Born into a filmmaking family in India, Mehelli Modi came to London in the 1960s and has had a long and varied career in the music industry. However, Mehelli’s first love has always been cinema and, in 2005, he founded Second Run DVD, a company dedicated to releasing important classic and contemporary feature films and documentaries from around the world. Their catalogue is now at over 120 titles and growing, and includes the works of filmmakers such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Miklós Jancsó, Kim Longinotto, Miloš Forman, Joshua Oppenheimer, Věra Chytilová, Nicolas Philibert and Marc Isaacs.

Border Crossings
Border Crossings is our initiative connecting filmmakers with academics, encouraging collaboration and the opportunity to create documentary films based on research stories. Six teams were selected to pitch live during Open City Documentary Festival 2018.

Pitch Teams:
Edwin Mingard and Jennifer Cearns – EL PAQUETE
Antony Butts and Paul Honeybone – THE AFFORDABILITY GAME
Dylan Howitt and Elizabeth Haines – LIFEBLOOD
Jade Jackman and Melyn McKay – WOMEN ARE REVOLTING
Meghna Gupta and Zuzana Hrdlickova – THE VOW OF A TIGRESS
Carol Salter, Elaine Chase and Gul Zada – BELONGING

Judging panel: Chloe Trayner, Associate Director - Open City Documentary Festival;
Kim Longinotto, filmmaker & Riete Ooerd, filmmaker.