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July 17, 2021 The

Un Certain Regard

jury 

 awarded the

Section

Grand Prize

to

Unclenching the fists

, a family drama in remote Ossetia directed by rising star of Russian cinema

Kira Kovalenko.

The section is the second official competition of the festival, aimed at discovering emerging directors with twenty feature films in competition, six of which are debut works that also compete for the Caméra d'or. The opening film was Arthur Harari's' Onoda - 10 000 Nights in the Junglè. Chaired by Andrea Arnold, the jury was made up of Mounia Meddour, Elsa Zylberstein, Daniel Burman, as well as Michael Covino.



Kovalenko's film will be distributed in Italian cinemas by Movies Inspired.



The Jury Prize

was awarded to

Great Freedom

, a homosexual prison drama by Austrian

Sebastian Meise.

A shower of further awards celebrated many of the films in the section: for the cast as a whole,

Bonne mere

by the Tunisian actress-director (naturalized French)

Hafsia Herzi

was mentioned

.



An

award for originality

goes to

Vladimir

Johannsson's

Icelandic

Lamb

,

a psychoanalytic thriller that revolves around a mysterious little lamb adopted by Noomi Rapace and her husband.



A

prize for courage

in

La civil by Teodora Ana Mihai

which narrates the desperate search for her daughter kidnapped by Mexican narcos by Cielo, a "courageous mother".

Lastly,



special mention

went to

Noche de fuego by Tatiana Huezo

, an exciting portrait of a civil war zone with the perspective of three little girls unaware of a deadly game.  



The other awards


Aleksandra Odić

from Germany with

Frida

, who tells about a meeting between a young nurse and her patient, is the winner of

the Lights on Women Award

, in collaboration with the short films of the Cannes film festival and the short film program of the international film schools. The final choice was determined and announced by

Oscar winner Kate Winslet

- first juror of the award.



Aleksandra Odić in recognition for her short film Frida will receive financial support of € 30,000. "The short film by Aleksandra Odić, Frida, moved me to tears," said Kate Winslet in connection, far from Cannes due to medical difficulties. "The brave delicacy and little use of dialogue have created an inner pain that requires courage, skill and a very delicate hand. I am confident that the Lights on Women Award will help a new generation of female directors in their careers, while also capturing unique themes and extremely relevant within the challenges of our world today ". 



The Italian director, 

Haider Rashid

(pictured), instead obtained

the Beatrice Sartori Award

with

 Europe,

presented at the Quinzaine des Rèalisateurs and soon in theaters in Italy distributed by I Wonder Pictures. The award, now in its ninth edition, is awarded by independent critics present at Cannes. 





Haider Rashid - born in Florence in 1985 from an Italian mother and an Iraqi father - directed the feature films 'Tangled Up in Bluè (2010),' Silence: All Roads Lead to Music '(2011),' Sta per pioverè (2013 - nominated for a Ciak d'Oro) and 'Street Operà (2015 - Special Award of the Silver Ribbons), the short film' The Deep '(2013 - Special Jury Award at the Dubai International Film Festival, nominated for the Golden Globes) and the first Italian documentary in virtual reality 'No Borders' (2016 - MigrArti Award at the Venice International Film Festival and special mention of the Nastri d'Argento).



The jury - chaired by Rudiger Suchsland (Germany), with Paolo De Cesare (Italy), Prapti Mittal (India) and Adriana Gonzales (France) - awarded "Europa" with the following motivation: "Cinema is attracted by clandestine emigration in as an epic fact of collective suffering, Haider Rashid instead has the merit of escaping commonplaces and television obviousness, he closely tells the body of an individual, the fears and emotions in his eyes in the foreground. world that hinders him in his escape from war. A courageous challenge ". 



Europe tells

the difficult journey of a young Iraqi, Kamal, who is entering Europe on foot, across the border between Turkey and Bulgaria. Along the so-called "Balkan route", Kamal is captured by the Bulgarian border police but manages to escape, looking for an escape route in an endless forest, an underworld where rules and law do not exist. A survival journey in which Kamal strenuously fights for freedom and life.



In the cast, Adam Ali, Svetlana Yancheva, Pietro Ciciriello, Gassid Mohammed, Mohamed Zouaoui, Erfan Rashid. The film is a Radical Plans (Italy) production in association with Beyond Dreams (Kuwait) and Fair Play (Italy), with the executive production of ODU Movies (Italy) and Berta Film (Italy).