Argentine director Rodrigo Moreno’s The Delinquents received the Grand Prix and a cash prize of €10,000 at the 23rd edition of the New Horizons International Film Festival (July 20-30) in the Polish city of Wroclaw.
The international competition jury including UK director Mark Jenkin and Polish filmmaker Aga Woszczyńska described Moreno’s bank heist dramedy as “an extraordinary journey, shapeshifting through multiple genres, tracing a playful, surreal, imposing love letter to cinema.”
The film premiered the Un Certain Regard sidebar at Cannes this year and is handled internationally by Magnolia Films International. New Horizons previously hosted Moreno’s 2006 film The Minder.
The jury awarded a special mention to French director Anthony Lapia’s debut feature After which premiered in the Berlinale’s Panorama section last February.
Georgian-born Elene Naveriani’s Directors’ Fortnight title Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry won the audience award.
Industry programme firsts
This year, the festival’s industry programme hosted the Pop Up Film Residency Visegrad for the first time at the end of a three-week programme.
It saw five filmmakers from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia receive guidance from mentors including Woman On The Roof director Anna Jadowska, Pamfir’s Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk and Lithuanian producer Marija Razgute. The filmmakers had an opportunity to pitch their film projects to the industry professionals attending the Polish Days and subsequently have one-to-one meetings with potential partners.
Another innovation this year was the special mention award granted by Connecting Cottbus to two producers who participated in the New Horizons Studio+ workshop programme for European director-producer pairs developing their first or second feature film.
The East-West Co-Production Market - which will be held in Cottbus from November 8-10, 2023 - offered a guaranteed visit and accreditation to producers Robin Meisner and Patryk Sielecki.
Berlin-based Meisner was in Wroclaw with director Aart Steinmann for their project Niemcy - Die Fremden, while Sielecki participated in the Studio+ workshop with Michal Edelman on his fiction feature-length debut You Don’t Know Me.
No comments yet