Portuguese Short ‘The Garbage Man’ Wins Top Prize At Zagreb Animafest
On Saturday night, Animafest Zagreb wrapped its 2022 edition, the event’s fiftieth year of existence. The grand prix for short film was awarded to the Portuguese film The Garbage Man (O homem do lixo) by Laura Gonçalves, marking the first time that a film from Portugal has won the event’s top honor.
Gonçalves’ film also picked up the audience award, only the fifth time in the festival’s history that the jury and audience have both honored the same film. The film’s grand prix qualifies it for competition at next year’s Academy Awards.
The Garbage Man is a documentary short based on interviews that Goncalves conducted with family members about her uncle, who was a sanitation worker in France for three decades. The Zagreb jury commended the film for the naturalism of the dialogue and the warmth and intimacy of the family setting, but “most of all, the tenderness with which it tells its story of generosity in the midst of political and economic hardship in Portugal.”
Goncalves has previously explored the documentary genre with her graduation film Three Weeks in December, which was a short pick of the day on Cartoon Brew in 2017.
Other key short film winners at the festival this year included Hugo Covarrubias’s Oscar-nominated Chilean short Bestia, which was awarded the Golden Zagreb Award for Creativity and Innovative Artistic Achievement, and Tal Kantor’s French/Israeli co-pro Letter to a Pig, which was honored with the Zlatko Grgić Award for best first film made outside an educational institution. Cartoon Brew exclusively premiered the trailer Kantor’s film earlier this month.
French student films dominated the student competition, with all three honorees (the winner and the special mentions) originating from French schools.
The student winner was Shih-Yen Huang’s Butterfly Jam (La Confiture de papillons) made at ENSAD. The story, which uses a metaphor of endless deaths of domestic animals to illustrate the filmmaker’s relationship with her careless father, was applauded by the jury for leading the viewer on a “hypnotizing journey through lifeless spaces of their home.”
On the feature side, My Sunny Maad by the veteran Czech filmmaker Michaela Pavlátova took home the top prize. Set in a post-Taliban Afghanistan, the novel-adapted drama was praised by the jury as a “masterfully directed story that blurs the lines between despair and hope, making one live through the pain of rejection and warmth in acceptance.”
The short film jury consisted of Paul Driessen, Les Mills, Alex Dudok de Wit, Ana Nedeljković, and Igor Grubić. The feature film jury consisted of Olga Pärn, Aya Suzuki, and Anastasiya Verlinska. The student film and Croatian film jury consisted of Alexandra Ramires, Jelena Popović, and Igor Prassel. The vr jury consisted of Eva Cvijanović, Milen Alempijević, and Franziska Bruckner. The children’s film jury consisted of Ema and Jakov Barbarović, Gita Gugo, Lala Spremo, and Nika Vrbanić.
Here is the list of winners in full:
Short Film Grand Prix
The Garbage Man (O homem do lixo) by Laura Gonçalves (Portugal)
Special Mentions
Impossible Figures and Other Stories I by Marta Pajek (Poland/Canada)
Thing (Ding) by Malte Stein (Germany)
Swallow the Universe by Nieto (France)
Steakhouse by Špela Čadež (Slovenia/Germany/France)
Skinned (Écorchée) by Joachim Hérissé (France)
Golden Zagreb Award for Creativity and Innovative Artistic Achievement
Bestia by Hugo Covarrubias (Chile)
Zlatko Grgić Award for the Best First Film Made Outside an Educational Institution
Letter to a Pig by Tal Kantor (France/Israel)
Dušan Vukotić Award for the Best Student Film
Butterfly Jam (La Confiture de papillons) by Shih-Yen Huang (France)
Special Mentions
Mom, What’s up with the Dog? (Maman, il a quoi le chien?) by Lola Lefevre (France)
The Immoral (L’immoral) by Ekin Koca (France)
Croatian Film Award
11 by Vuk Jevremović (Croatia)
Special Mention
Letters from the Edge of the Forest by Jelena Oroz (Croatia)
Love in Times of Coal-Based Economy by Tomasz Siwiński (Poland/Croatia)
Feature Film Grand Prix
My Sunny Maad by Michaela Pavlátova (Czech Republic/France/Slovakia)
Special Mention
Dozens of Norths (Ikuta no kita) by Koji Yamamura (Japan/France)
The Crossing (La traverse) by Florence Miailhe (France/Germany/Czech Republic)
VR Animation Award
Samsara by Hsin-Chien Huang (Taiwan)
Special Mention
Marco & Polo Go Round by Benjamin Steiger Levine (Canada/Belgium)
Films for Children Award
Piropiro by Miyoung Baek (South Korea)
Special Mention
Franzy’s Soup Kitchen (La Soupe de Franzy) by Ana Chubinidze (France/Georgia)
Audience Award: Short Film
The Garbage Man (O homem do lixo) by Laura Gonçalves (Portugal)
Audience Award: Feature Film
The Crossing (La traverse) by Florence Miailhe (France/Germany/Czech Republic)