This year’s Melbourne Film Festival has drawn to a close after nearly three weeks and almost $200,000 given in prize money. The top honor this year, the festival’s international Bright Horizons competition which comes with a prize of $91,000, went to Banel & Adema, the debut film of Franco-Senegalese filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy.
When the film premiered in Cannes this year it won no prizes, but Variety critic Jessica Kiang praised it, calling it “striking debut [that] revolves with graceful poetry around the inner experiences of a curious, unknowable woman.” The film is still seeking distribution partners in the United States.
Nominated in the same category was Molly Manning Walker’s Cannes Un Certain Regard winner How to Have Sex and Phạm Thiên Ân’s Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell. Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman were the co-chairs of the jury, and their fellow jurors included filmmakers Alexandre O. Philippe, Anthony Chen and Kamila Andini.
A full list of the Melbourne Film Festival winners are below.
Bright Horizons Award: Banel & Adama, Ramata-Toulaye Sy
Bright Horizons Special Jury Mention: Tótem, Lila Avilés
Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award: Soda Jerk, Hello Dankness
First Nations Film Creative Award in collaboration with Kearney Group: Adrian Russell Wills and Gillian Moody, Kindred
MIFF Audience Award: This Is Going to Be Big, Thomas Charles Hyland
MIFF Schools Youth Jury Award: This Is Going to Be Big
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