Over 100 works are taking part in this year’s 6th edition of the Ermanno Olmi Award, intended to promote short films by young directors. Fictions, documentaries, experimental films and animation, from Spain, Estonia, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, UK, Poland, China, Iran and Malaysia, among others, and a substantial Italian representative.
Three cash prizes (€1,200, €600, €400), made available by Bergamo Film Meeting Onlus, and a special mention with a cash prize worth €300 offered by FIC – Federazione Italiana Cineforum. Competing for the Prize, promoted by the City of Bergamo, with the support of Bergamo Film Meeting Onlus in collaboration with FIC – Federazione Italiana Cineforum are: VOICE by Andrea La Puca (Itay, 2024), Provocative by Èlia Lorente Estopañan (Spain, 2023), We should all be futurists by Angela Norelli (Italy, 2023) and Mum by Jan Ziewiecki (Poland, 2024).
The Prize will be awarded on Tuesday 3rd December at 8.30 p.m. at Lo Schermo Bianco by the jury consisting of Chiara Cremaschi (screenwriter and director), Rossana Galimi (PhD student), Massimo Lastrucci (film critic and journalist), Elisabetta Olmi (producer) e Stefano P. Testa (director) along with a special mention awarded to the most significant work concerning “The exercise of peace”. This is practiced in daily attitudes, in openness to encounter, compassion and doubt. It is a way of looking at the world around us, seeing in others existences to be respected, with which to share life paths. Ermanno Olmi’s cinema reveals a gaze made of humanity, care and respect, which does not hide suffering and does not deny the difficulty of solidarity action, nor the loneliness of revolt.
In the words of Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Bergamo, Sergio Gandi: «The Ermanno Olmi Award is a legacy worthy of particular appreciation, which the current City Administration wholeheartedly embraces, as it combines cinema with the younger generations, commemorating the renowned Italian director with an annual event. Dedicating space and resources to recognize the creativity of directors under 30 is the best way to keep cultural production vibrant, relevant to contemporary themes, and appealing to young people. This initiative also serves more mature audiences, who, through the lens of short films, can view the younger generations with curiosity and a more attentive, welcoming disposition. The numerous entries from around the world confirm that this Award has become a true benchmark for today’s film production».
THE FINALISTS
VOCE
by Andrea La Puca (Italy, 2024)
VOCE (voice, t. l.) is an impulse, the need to give voice to those who have not been able to use their own. Andrea La Puca and Azzurra Nappi, collecting through an anonymous form hundreds of complaints of experiences of violence, give life to a female monologue that encompasses all the voices that could never be heard.
Provocadora
by Èlia Lorente Estopañan (Spain, 2023)
What can’t be remembered. The summer memories of Vera at her grandfather’s home, will be interrupted by some situations that will make us question the reality of her actions, fears and attitudes. A mature point of view of a broken childhood, a discovery.
We should all be futurists
by Angela Norelli (Italy, 2023)
At the turn of the 1910s and 1920s, in an allusive correspondence, Rosa confides in her friend Giorgina, telling her a secret: the machine-man envisioned by Marinetti is not a near future for mankind, as futurists say. It is a present for womankind, and Giorgina can unwrap it now.
Mamo
by Jan Ziewiecki (Poland, 2024)
A tender look at the relationship between women, whose roles has been reversed by time. A daughter takes care of her old mother, but their bond is tested by fading memory. Ordinary activities take on new meanings and the presence of the other person becomes a source of strength in the face of the inevitable.
