Flatpack 2022 Award Winners
We've been thoroughly treated to a line-up of exceptional short films this year, leaving our audience and film juries with some very tough decisions. The votes are in, and we're delighted to share our Flatpack 2022 award winners...
Colour Box Audience Award
A Town Called Panic: The Summer Holidays
(Dir: Vincent Patar & Stéphane Aubier, Belgium / France / Switzerland 2021, 26 mins)
Colour Box Award
Luce and the Rock
(Dir: Britt Raes, Belgium / France / Netherlands 2022, 13 mins)
Jury member Flora Kay (Learning & Engagement team manager) at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts said: "This year’s Colour Box is exactly what we needed, energising, emotive and most of all, connective, which seemed to be the overarching theme of these jam packed animations. The shorts took us all over the world and what a joy they were to experience. The winner for me ticked all the boxes. One small person’s journey of finding a home for at first, an unwanted friend. A story of patience, community and friendship."
Screendance special mention
On Mending
(Dir: Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern, Emilie Louise Leriche, Italy 2021, 15 mins)
Jury members Jo Cork (dance and film artist) and Cara Hagan (mover, maker, writer, curator) said: "On Mending is a deeply moving work which many will relate to in their own way. It successfully expresses something of what it is to be human."
"Visually stunning, filled with pangs and gut-punches of emotion that have the power to trigger memories, nostalgia, and other forms of longing. This work keeps rippling within the viewer once the film has ended."
Screendance Award
Knot
(Dir: Marie Lechevallier, UK 2020, 8 mins)
Jo Cork and Cara Hagan said: "This is a beautifully crafted work, coalescing multiple image making and choreographic practices. Its emotional and narrative journey takes the viewer deep in side the world of the film, to be lost in it for its duration."
"Knot is a luscious and textural work that invites the viewer deep inside the experiences of the characters who are so expertly rendered. It is hard not to be completely consumed by this work in the viewing; it is a satisfying dive."
Optical Sound Short Film Award
You Can’t Show My Face
(Dir: Knutte Wester, Sweden 2021, 24 mins)
Jury members (and Optical Sound performers) Robert Kroos and Roel Meelkop said:
"More than just making a documentary about a group of teens making a hip hop track, Wester has managed to pull us into the lives of people who are struggling to create a free space of their own in a society that is governed by severe religious laws. He does this without ever pointing this out explicitly; he lets the protagonists tell their story in their own words and in their music.
‘You can’t show my face’ is a heartwarming plea for the power of music and poetry. Even the possible danger of imprisonment can't stop the maker and the protagonists' urge to express themselves. The peaceful rebellion of music gives a face to those who actually can't show their faces.
Don't be quiet!"
Mid-length film Award
Piché Returns to the Ring
(Dir: Helgi Piccinin, Canada 2021, 23 mins)
Jury members Rebekah Taylor (film programmer) and Jack Yuille (film buff and audience member) said:
"Piché is a short film that makes an instant impact. For its 23 minute running time it tells a complete and totally engaging story. We were really impressed with the confident way in which Piccinin shifted tone - mixing light and shade, joy and pain. A stand out scene for us was when see Piché backstage before the fight, we see him vulnerable but we also see exactly what this moment means to him."
Audience Award
Goodbye Jérôme!
(Dir: Gabrielle Selnet, Adam Sillard, Chloé Farr, France 2021, 8 mins)
(This one is also a team favourite.)
WTF Award
C'est la Vie
(Dir: Jacek Olejnik, Rafał Sankiewicz, Wojciech Sankiewicz, Bartosz Terlicki, Poland 2021, 13 mins)
Film programmer Laura Ager and creative practioner Arron Gill said:
Bursting into life from a place of despair, a seemingly ordinary story, drearily depicted in stop motion, suddenly rejects its form and defies expectations…and categorisation.
Short Film Award - Special Mention
Bye Little Block!
(Dir: Éva Darabos, Hungary 2020, 9 mins)
Laura and Arron said:
This one stayed with us throughout our discussions. So much emotion: sweet, sad, funny, it takes a fresh look at a place that may on the surface seem very ordinary. This feels like something that can only be realised as piece of animation.
Short Film Award
VO
(Dir: Nicolas Gourault, France 2020, 19 mins)
Laura and Arron said:
"Unexpectedly beautiful, ethically radical. A digital gaze, a human error. The viewer is somehow implicated and can't help but make a judgement, not just on this case, but on how we feel about relaxing our own vigilance and giving more and more control to the webs of data in which we live. It also makes us ask ourselves the question about what film really is..."