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LOCARNO 2022 Awards

Rule 34 wins the Golden Leopard in Locarno

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- The festival put the powerful and radical film by Brazilian director Júlia Murat on the top step of the podium, while the films by Alessandro Comodin and Valentina Maurel also won awards

Rule 34 wins the Golden Leopard in Locarno
Director Júlia Murat with her Golden Leopard for Rule 34 (© Locarno Film Festival/Ti-Press/Massimo Pedrazzini)

The Golden Leopard at the 75th edition of the Locarno Film Festival is in line with the ambitions of its artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro who commented on the palmarès: "The prizes awarded by both the juries and the public reflect the vision that guided our artistic choices. At Locarno75, cinema has confirmed itself to be an indispensable tool for dealing with the unspeakable, with trauma, for approaching what seems far away, and to give shape to the complexity of reality by including diversity".

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The films that make up the winning triptych of the International Competition: Brazilian director Julia Murat's Rule 34 [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Golden Leopard), Alessandro Comodin's The Adventures of Gigi the Law [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alessandro Comodin
film profile
]
(Special Jury Prize) and Costa Rican director Valentina Maurel's Tengo sueños eléctricos [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Valentina Maurel
film profile
]
(Best Director, Best Actress and Best Actor) are indeed part of those films that leave their mark, cinematic works that open one's eyes to uncomfortable realities too often relegated to the shadows, out of shame or perhaps simply out of fear of a diversity that one cannot accept because it is destabilising.

Surprising but definitely welcome was the decision of the jury of the Concorso internazionale to award the Golden Leopard to Rule 34, a courageous and radical film (aesthetically and thematically) that portrays a character who transforms sexuality (rigorously lived outside patriarchal heterosexual clichés) into a political act, into a claim for freedom that clashes against an oppressive social system. About the film, Giona A. Nazzaro says: "An important Golden Leopard for a cinema like Brazil's, which has written key pages in the history of world cinema. A cinema that is on the front line to defend an idea of a more inclusive and free world. Rule 34 brings Brazilian cinema back to the anarchic splendour of 'marginal cinema'. A bold and political work destined to leave an important mark. The body is political."

Although in a different register, The Adventures of Gigi the Law also imposes itself as a radical, unexpected and powerful film. Alessandro Comodin decides to stage his uncle, a character terribly typical of a certain Italian periphery little represented on the screen, whose fragilities he courageously and intelligently reveals.

Tengo sueños elécrtricos, Valentina Maurel's first feature film, instead presents itself as a work that refuses to succumb to stereotypes (gender stereotypes above all), presenting us with the bumpy path of an adolescent who tries to understand who she is outside of social conventions, refusing a normalisation that would have her docile and compliant. Eva, the film's protagonist, prefers to embrace the ambiguity of reality rather than submit to rules that she perceives as false and unfair.

The Cineasti del presente competition also rewards the audacity of two female directors who tackle uncomfortable issues such as violence against women and mental illness head-on: Nightsiren [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tereza Nvotová
film profile
]
by Tereza Nvotová (Golden Leopard) and Sister, What Grows Where Land Is Sick? [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Norwegian director Franciska Eliassen (Special Mention). Tereza Nvotová tells the story of an ancestral struggle for the conquest of a denied freedom, for the affirmation of an identity that imposes itself outside gender stereotypes and the violence of a patriarchal society in which feelings must be stifled. Franciska Eliassen also stages a struggle, but this time a more intimate and personal one, that of the young protagonist trying to understand her sister, a prisoner of a world both fantastic and frightening from which she cannot escape. What does it mean to be 'normal'? What are the consequences of a mind that only interprets the world through its own rules? Still on the subject of European films, the Ukrainian work How Is Katia? [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Christina Tynkevych
film profile
]
by Christina Tynkevych won the Ciné+ Special Jury Prize and the Leopard for Best Actress, while Safe Place [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juraj Lerotić
film profile
]
by Croatian director Juraj Lerotić won the Leopards for Best Director and Best Actor, as well as the Best First Feature Award (Special Mention to Love Dog [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bianca Lucas
film profile
]
by Bianca Lucas and De noche los gatos son pardos [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Valentin Merz
film profile
]
by Valentin Merz).

As for the Piazza Grande, the winner of the Audience Award (UBS Audience Award) is the Swiss-Belgian co-production Last Dance [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Delphine Lehericey
film profile
]
by Delphine Lehericey, a comedy that depicts the struggle of a man trying to rebuild himself after the sudden loss of his wife. Blandine Lenoir's French film Angry Annie [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
won the Variety Piazza Grande Award.

The awards:

International Competition

Golden Leopard
Rule 34 [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
- Julia Murat (Brazil/France)

Jury Special Prize
The Adventures of Gigi the Law [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alessandro Comodin
film profile
]
- Alessandro Comodin (Italy/France/Belgium)

Leopard for Best Direction
Valentina Maurel - Tengo sueños eléctricos [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Valentina Maurel
film profile
]
(Belgium/France/Costa Rica)

Leopard for Best Actress
Daniela Marín Navarro - Tengo sueños eléctricos

Leopard for Best Actor
Reinaldo Amien Gutiérrez - Tengo sueños eléctricos

Cineasti del presente Competition

Golden Leopard
Nightsiren [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tereza Nvotová
film profile
]
- Tereza Nvotová (Slovakia/Czech Republic)

Best Emerging Director Award
Juraj Lerotić – Safe Place [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juraj Lerotić
film profile
]
(Croatia)

Ciné+ Special Jury Prize
How Is Katia? [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Christina Tynkevych
film profile
]
- Christina Tynkevych (Ukraine)

Leopard for Best Actress
Anastasia Karpenko – How Is Katia?

Leopard for Best Actor
Goran Marković – Safe Place

Special Mention
Sister, What Grows Where Land Is Sick? [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
- Franciska Eliassen (Norway)

Pardi di domani Competitions

Corti d’autore Competition

Golden Leopard for Best Auteur Short Film
Big Bang - Carlos Segundo (France/Brazil)

International Competition

Golden Leopard for Best International Short Film
Sovereign – Wara (Cuba)

Silver Leopard
Neighbour Abdi - Douwe Dijkstra (Netherlands)

Best Directing Award
Hardly Working - Total Refusal (Austria)

Medien Patent Verwaltung AG Award
Mulika - Maisha Maene (Democratic Republic of Congo)

Special Mention
Mother Prays All Day Long - Hoda Taheri (Germany)

Locarno Film Festival short selected for the European Film Awards
Neighbour Abdi - Douwe Dijkstra (Netherlands)

National Competition

Golden Leopard for Best Swiss Short
Euridice, Euridice - Lora Mure-Ravaud (Switzerland/France)

Silver Leopard
Der Molchkongress - Matthias Sahli, Immanuel Esser (Switzerland)

Best Swiss Newcomer
Heartbeat - Michèle Flury (Switzerland)

Semaine de la critique

Grand Prix Semaine de la critique - Prix SRG SSR
The Hamlet Syndrome [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Elwira Niewiera and Piotr R…
film profile
]
- Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosolowski (Poland/Germany)

Marco Zucchi Award
Fledgings [+see also:
trailer
interview: Lidia Duda
film profile
]
- Lidia Duda (Poland)

Zonta Club Locarno Award
Ruthless Times: Songs of Care [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Susanna Helke
film profile
]
- Susanna Helke (Finland)

Other prizes

Swatch First Feature Award
Safe Place - Juraj Lerotić (Croatia)
Special Mentions
Love Dog [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bianca Lucas
film profile
]
- Bianca Lucas (Poland/Mexico/United States)
De noche los gatos son pardos [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Valentin Merz
film profile
]
- Valentin Merz (Switzerland)

Green Leopard WWF
Matter Out Of Place [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
film profile
]
- Nikolaus Geyrhalter (Austria)
Special Mentions
It Is Night In America [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
- Ana Vaz (Italy/France/Brazil)
Sermon To The Fish [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
- Hilal Baydarov (Azerbaijan/Mexico/Switzerland/Turkey)

UBS Audience Award
Last Dance [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Delphine Lehericey
film profile
]
- Delphine Lehericey (Switzerland/Belgium)

Variety Piazza Grande Award
Annie Colère [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
– Blandine Lenoir (France)

Ecumenical Award
Tales of the Purple House [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
- Abbas Fahdel (Iraq/Liban/France)

FIPRESCI Award
Stone Turtle - Ming Jin Woo (Malaysia/Indonesia)

Europa Cinemas Label
Tommy Guns [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Carlos Conceição
film profile
]
- Carlos Conceição (Portugal/France/Angola)

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(Translated from Italian)

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