The jury made up of Stella Egypt, Simone Catania and Nello Scavo awarded the prize for best documentary to “The Second Life” by Sicilian director Davide Gambino, an Italy / Germany / Belgium co-production presented in regional preview. As the director was able to declare, Siciliambiente was the first screening completely in the presence of the film after many online or hybrid festivals. at the screening were present the producer Ruggero di Maggio, the taxidermist protagonist of the film and Lukas Roegler playwright and script consultant.
The jury awarded the prize “For having merged the stories with a sacred and sensitive gaze and investigated the motivations of the three protagonists without a solution of poetic and sometimes mystical continuity, staged by a mature direction, never predictable and courageous in aesthetic choices . Taxidermy: profaning, and by profession, a lifeless body, can sometimes, but above all for someone, mean a passport to eternal life. ”
Second Prize goes to “No News” by Lennart Hüper, a German production with an Italian premiere. For the jury it is “The story of an expectation, not of a resignation. The artistic challenge of a sober direction, without emphasis or rhetoric, which reconstructs a suspended time. Nothing seems to happen. Instead, people die around, while the ship remains blocked, prisoner of a boycott that forces rescuers to stay on board so as not to lose the vessel with which they hope sooner or later to return to save lives. While “no news” arrives, life on board flows, between judicial battles and frustration for each S.O.S. which cannot be answered. A silence that is in itself an indictment that has the advantage of being able to shake consciences ”
The Audience Award, established for the second time for the international competition for fictional films, goes to Christian Monnier’s A Fishy Business in Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, which arrived from France as an Italian premiere.
The Amnesty International Italia Special Prize, dedicated to human rights, goes to Andrea Marinelli’s “All Eyes on the Amazon”. A Dutch production in regional preview.
“All Eyes on the Amazon is once again a story of stolen resources, of the unimaginable devastation that oil extraction leaves behind and the struggle of the local population, this time in Ecuador, to defend the land and their very existence. With simple tools but thanks to a capillary and skilled organization, the native population fights for dignity, denouncing the pollution that makes the territory unlivable and bringing as evidence images collected with drones. The courageous activism of the defenders of the environment in Latin America is always closely intertwined with the resistance, with the need to preserve one’s identity and ancestral lands. Amnesty International Italia recognizes itself in this fight and celebrates it by rewarding this documentary and the commitment of the protagonists, as well as the researchers who work alongside them ”
The Greenpeace Italy Award to I Am Greta – A force of nature by Nathan Grossman.
“The reconstruction of the story of Greta Thunberg“ in progress ”is an extraordinary testimony of how the Fridays For Future movement was born, which played a crucial role in the debate on the climate crisis. The documentary film records from the beginning the origin of the movement led by what was defined by the writer Nicolò Ammanniti as a “modern Antigone”, who had the ability to forcefully bring the climate crisis back onto the international political agenda. A modern Antigone who has given shape to the hope of an entire generation that claims the right to its future. If we manage to keep the climate crisis within acceptable limits, it will also be due to Greta’s contribution ”
The AAMOD Award to “A Youth” by Giorgio Bosisio from the United Kingdom presented in Italian preview. The prize consists of the free use of three minutes of archival images. The prize was awarded “For having been able to tell with an intimate and empathic gaze the precariousness and lack of certainty of a young migrant and, consequently, of an entire generation that lives waiting for the construction of a future that can guarantee a” normality “made up of small securities in the family, work and social sphere.”
The TTPixel Prize, which consists of 4 rounds of color correction and the printing of 1 DCP master, is awarded to “Winter” by Giulio Mastromauro, already best short for David Di Donatello. “Winter” also receives a special mention from the jury.
For short films the award for the best short film goes to The Nightwalk by Adriano Valerio shot between Italy and France. Second Prize goes to Sameh Alaa’s I Am Afraid to Forget Your Face shot in Egypt, France, Belgium, Qatar, already winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
For the animations, the first prize awarded by the jury made up of 15 students from the Liceo Archimede in Acireale (Catania) goes to Mila by Cinzia Angelini (USA, UK, Canada). The Second Prize is awarded to Only a Child by Simone Giampaolo (Switzerland).