Best Film WTFF6 feature films & medium-length films:
Rue Garibaldi by Federico Francioni
The jury of the Feature & Medium-length films section, composed of Sara Fgaier and Filippo Ticozzi, decided to award the prize for best film to Rue Garibaldi by Federico Francioni:
For the intimate relationship the film manages to establish with its protagonists: Rafik and Ines, two Sicilian siblings of Tunisian origin who have decided to leave their homeland in search of fortune.
Rafik defines it as “a logbook”, capturing the essence of a fragment of the lives of two young people in their twenties.
The film allows us to immerse ourselves completely in their lives thanks to Francioni’s ability to become part of their universe and to share, in an almost total adhesion, their condition. We experience at close quarters their expectations, uncertainties, disappointments, the shenanigans of the devaluing jobs they encounter, but also their hopes, enthusiasm, vitality, and desire for the future. The profound bond between these two siblings overwhelms us. It seems so powerful that it overcomes every obstacle and protects them from all the monstrosities that surround them.
Special mention WTFF6 feature films & medium-length films:
La distanza by EneceFilm
The jury also decided to give a special mention to La distanza by EneceFilm:
For its ability to combine experiment and narrative, allowing the viewer to feel the rhythm and vibrations of the particular lives of the protagonists, be they humans or animals. A rigorous and deliberately non-empathetic look that succeeds in deeply investigating the relationship between man/animal/environment and that, through the skilful use of cinematographic rhetoric, shows an unprecedented fragment of contemporaneity, between an anthropological essay and a fairy tale.
Best Film WTFF6 short-films:
In Flow of Words by Eliane Esther Bots
The jury of the Short Films section, composed of Maria Iovine and Marco Zuin, has decided to award the prize for best film to In Flow of Words by Eliane Esther Bots for the following reasons:
With an original language and a mise-en-scene that is never secondary, but always precise and revealing of the deepest aspects of her story, the director allows us to enter a working reality where neutrality and asepticity become not only the peculiar characteristics of a job, but tools to defend workers from the emotional implications of work itself. The filmic language of the winning short film has the great ability to enter the souls of the protagonists without seeking easy emotion and to share the implications of a profession that is unknown to most people. For its powerful cinematographic work and excellent ability to portray human beings in the most dehumanising of human practices, the prize for the winning short film goes to In Flow of Words.
Special mention WTFF6 short-films:
Lili Alone by Zou Jing
The jury also decided to give a special mention to Lili Alone by Zou Jing on the following grounds:
A film that sheds light on the boundary of what is work and what is not, investigating personal dynamics that inevitably become social and political. It is a story about the exploitation of human beings, starting from what inescapably defines them: their body. In this story of denied work in a world where patriarchy and poverty limit any possibility of fulfilment and livelihood, a woman is left completely and sadly alone in facing her difficulties. A silent cry marked by a precise and geometric photography in which light and shadow become synonymous with backwardness and modernity. The special mention goes to Lili Alone.
Best Film WTFF6 ExtraWorks:
VO by Nicolas Gourault
The jury of the ExtraWorks section, composed of Rossella Schillaci and Lorenzo Casali, decided to award the prize for best film to VO by Nicolas Gourault:
For the director’s ability to bring out a scenario that is as disturbing and futuristic as it is real and close to us. VO raises social and ethical questions about machine learning, about the relationship between man and machine, the gig economy, and the safety of new technologies.
Refined editing, both visual and audio, which blends the testimonies of the operators with images recreated with a computer starting from the information generated by the control monitors of the cars themselves.
Special mention WTFF6 ExtraWorks:
AMP. Note per una pratica di autogestione by Chiara Campara and Vittoria Soddu
The jury also decided to give a special mention to AMP. Note per una pratica di autogestione by Chiara Campara and Vittoria Soddu:
For its patient editing of heterogeneous materials, and for giving voice to a reality of health, social, and political work that is as substantial as it is mistreated. For a delicate and empathetic analysis of a working environment, its staff and patients, who reflect a look onto marginalised realities. For critically examining issues related to the evolving public health, and for its appeal to active participation in the community.
Best Film Young jury:
Rue Garibaldi by Federico Francioni
The Young Jury composed of university students Davide Maria Furlan, Fabrizio Yang, Cristina Priorelli, and Diana Russo decided to award the prize for best film to Rue Garibaldi by Federico Francioni on the following grounds:
Among the proposals of this sixth edition of the Working Title Film Festival, the story of Ines and Rafik, brother and sister, is the most compelling and necessary one. The two young twenty-somethings of Tunisian origin, first raised in Sicily and currently living in a Parisian suburb – in Rue Garibaldi, in fact – are filmed by Federico Francioni at various moments of their adventure. The two constantly navigate in the magma of uncertainty, moving from one job to another, and reflect the story of many young people forced to live a similar precariousness. The film’s greatest merit is undoubtedly the universality of its message, and indeed Paris becomes almost invisible: the two could be anywhere else. The other protagonists of the story are smartphones, veritable extensions of the limbs of the young – and the old – with alarm clocks, matches on Tinder and work calls via speakerphone punctuating their days. Or, again, contemporary artefacts capable of transforming any room into a discotheque. A note of merit goes to the director, who is able to conceal his presence without renouncing cinematic experimentalism of various kinds, such as the skilful use of fading or the surreal plays of light and shadow.
Special mentions Yung jury:
Portugal Pequeno by Victor Quintanilha and Lemongrass Girl by Pom Bunsermvicha
The jury also decided to award two special mentions to Portugal Pequeno by Victor Quintanilha and Lemongrass Girl by Pom Bunsermvicha on the following grounds:
Portugal Pequeno is a fictional short in which the situation of young Jonatan is explored amidst sudden changes of setting, from the clubs in which he passionately follows his dream of singing for a living, to more intimate and personal situations, such as during hard work with his father on a small fishing boat on the Brazilian coast.
The short film stands out for its sharp and incisive photography, capable of bringing the atmosphere of each setting to its fullest expression, be it the chaotic surroundings of a nightclub or the grey reality of a shipyard. Even the secondary characters are delineated with rapid brush strokes that allow us to be deeply immersed in the ambience of the story.
Between his dreams, his hopes and his personal vicissitudes, the character of Jonatan or Mc Xerelete, depending on whether he is at work or on a stage, becomes a symbol of young people who are still capable of dreaming and following their ambitions, without forgetting the harsh but almost comforting reality, with the family complicity, from which they come.
Lemongrass Girl is a short film written and directed by Pom Bunsermvicha in which reality, fiction, and cinema itself are the main protagonists of the story. The short film has the set of another film as a backdrop, namely Come Here by Anocha Suwichakornpong, co-producer with the director. In less than fifteen minutes, two separate stories are unravelled and depicted: the first is that of a Thai legend according to which a virgin can ward off the rain by planting a citronella upside down; the second is the story of the film crew, who play themselves. The female gaze is critical and plays much on the boundary between fiction and reality, which become so contaminated that one can no longer tell them apart. This short film succeeds in conveying, through a metacinematic filmic presence and the genuineness of its performances, the vision of the autonomy and purity of the female figure in the Thai context, and of how legends are often simply accepted without necessarily questioning their truth, thus including one more important and thought-provoking theme: one’s own spirituality.