- Mezipatra Queer Film Festival, which took place entirely online this year, finished on Saturday, November 21.
- Festival films will be available at Aeorovod.cz until January 5th, however.
- The winner of the main feature film competition is drama No Hard Feelings (Futur Drei). Hugo 6:30 pm from France scored in the short films competition. And the audience award winner is the coming-of-age drama Lola (Lola vers la mer).
The online edition of Mezipatra Queer Film Festival finished on November 21. The winner of the main competition is German drama No Hard Feelings (Futur Drei), directed by Faraz Shariat and focusing on the lives of young queer immigrants in Germany. The film won a Teddy Award at Berlinale IFF and at Mezipatra, it was chosen as the winner by an international jury consisting of filmmaker Brigid O'Shea, director Marián Amsler, and journalist Barbora Šichanová: “Although we couldn't meet in person as the jury, we unanimously selected a film focusing on family, belonging, identity, love and loss through the vehicle of immigration in contemporary Germany. The film deals with stereotypes and stigmatisation of certain communities, showing humankind in all its empathy and apathy, beauty and ugliness, and the effort of the characters to survive in a world that is often cruel.”
The winner of the short films competition is French Hugo at 6:30pm by directors Simon Helloc and James Maciver. The film follows young actor Hugo who is asked to tell some story at a casting. But it must be improvised, and thus begins a deeply personal confession about friendship, sex, illness and reconciliation. The student jury appreciated the overall message of the film: “It is said that human emotions are a complicated matter of endless corridors filled with impressive memories as well as compartments full of regret and mistakes. We decided to choose a film that offers not only an important topic, but also a message of love and, above all, hope,” agreed FAMU student and director Natália Antoňáková, audiovisual artist Kryštof Blabla, and model and writer ISAAC.
The jury's special mention was dedicated to the animated Genius Loci by Adrien Merigeau: “We would like to award a special mention to this film for its abstract poetry surrounding the natural emotional chaos, mental health, an exceptionally innovative imagery, its coherent form, and the use of film language.”
The audience award goes to Laurent Micheli's road movie Lola (Lola vers la mer), which Mezipatra launched in Czech distribution this year under its label of Queer Kino. This Belgian road movie sensitively and without stereotypes depicts the relationship between the trans main character, the free-spirited Lola, on her journey to honour her mother’s memory and rebuild the relationship with her conservative father.
Although Mezipatra has awarded the prizes, it is certainly not ending because most of the films from the whole program will be available for all viewers at aerovod.cz until January 5. Each film costs CZK 80, the whole festival offer is for CZK 950.
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