- Two-week online selection of avant-garde short films sees awards distributed for the fourth annual Indy Film Library Experimental Showcase
- Andreas Aicka Thomsen takes Best Director for thought-provoking short on relationship disintegration Anemoia, which also scoops Best Cinematography
- Social alienation meditation Up Close picks up double of Audience Choice and Best Film
Since Monday 26th August 2024, Indy Film Library (IFL) has been streaming some of the best experimental short films it has received for review over the last year. The films have been selected on the basis of both their storytelling and the technical skills exhibited by their cast and crew.
Now, as the showcase prepares to draw to a close on Monday 9th September, IFL has announced the winners from the Experimental Showcase shortlist.
The list of accolades distributed sees Best Film handed to Mira Alkadri’s slow-burning short Up Close, which sees a pair of travellers go through a whirlwind of fears and emotions, sitting opposite each other on a packed train in Paris. In the IFL review of the film, the film was lauded for “suggesting that a kinder, gentler world is still possible” in the lead up to the French Parliamentary elections, which had threatened to deliver a majority to the far-right – but eventually saw the left surprise the world to finish first.
Up Close triumphed in a poll of its own during the Experimental Showcase, also winning the Audience Choice award. The film secured an emphatic 71% of votes, which is one of the largest winning margins ever delivered at an IFL event.
Audience Choice runner-up I Am Become Deathwill not end the showcase empty-handed, though. Tom Potter’s production was handed the wreath for Best Editing, with the film reviewed by IFL as a “bleak and distressing experimental edit… [that] taps into a Zeitgeist that much of the world was seemingly oblivious to”.
Best Score was won by Kimberly Burleigh’s nature-based soundtrack for Jealousy. The film was soundtracked “only by the deafening cacophony of the natural world. A constant chorus of croaking frogs is joined intermittently by the brief, electric screech of gnats hovering over the table on the porch… something which sounds idyllic, but wouldn’t be nearly as peaceful as we might imagine”.
Finally, returning filmmaker Andreas Aicka Thomsen picked up two laurels for his film Anemoia. First, the firm took the prize for Best Cinematography – with its earlier review praising its “peerless” construction of images, adding “it’s not just someone playing with some very expensive toys, but using them to build a visual prose”. At the same time, the film won Best Director, with that review also noting “everything Thomsen has done here is perfectly geared toward the beautiful duality of avant-garde cinema.”
IFL Chief Editor Jack Benjamin commented, “I would obviously like to congratulate all the winners of this year’s Experimental Showcase on their victories – and to thank all the artists and viewers for their participation. It’s a privilege to present these films to our readers, with such a determination to give our audience spaces to escape from the noise around us, and think about life’s great questions.”
All the films selected are still available to view for free until Monday September 9th 23:00 CET. The films can be accessed via the IFL website. Meanwhile, Indy Film Library is still open for its sixth year of submissions.
-ENDS-
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