Press Release from the 27th International Film Festival Golden Beggar Košice 2021
Welcome to the 27th International Film Festival in Kosice, Slovakia: Welcome to the The Golden Beggar.
For the second year we are having to meet online because of the pandemic, but this year Covid-19 has a category all to itself, as you will hear in a few minutes.
Tonight you will see only one part of the usual festival – the competition and its results. The organizers would like to rganize also a live presentation of the awarded film at the end of October. The event will take place in Kulturpark in Kosice. For more details see www.festival.sk.
- We have received 277 films from 51 countries. From Europe, of course, but also from North, South and Central America, From the Far East, Middle East and the Near East, Several African countries. Both very large AND very small From Oceania and Islands in the Indian & Pacific Oceans… and we even have a Hollywood connection or two.
So pandemic or no pandemic, filmmaking is still healthy, still exciting and still coming to us hoping to win a Golden Beggar!
The international jury had five members . These are the people who decided.
Elena Romanato Italy, Darko Kovic Serbia, Saman Hosseinpuor Iran, Martin Vilím Slovakia and Roger Worrod , chairman of the jury Switzerland.
Awarded films:
- Children’s Jury Award for the best Animation
Name of the film: Sky Sun ,Tile Sun
Director: Ziba Arzhang
Country: Iran, Islamic Republic of
- Special Prize – Category Life with Corona
Name of the film: The School Is Not Secondary
Director: Alberto Valtellina, Paolo Vitali
Country: Italy
In our second year of Covid-19, THE SCHOOL IS NOT SECONDARY from Italy, showed us a different way to approach teaching, an inclusive way to look at confrontation, a productive way to turn the boring into something interesting, stimulating and provocative.
- Special Prize
Name of the film: Heaven, Wheel, Earth
Director: Kosta Markovski
Country: Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of
This is the first Macedonian film about the dramatic history of the Roma, from their origins to their movement around and position in the world today. An important document. An important documentary and award winner.
- Special Prize
Name of the film: Escape From a Good Prison
Director: Erik Jasaň
Country: Slovakia
Special Prize for a Slovak Production goes to Erik Jasaň for Escape From a Good Prison a film about desires that perhaps will never be resolved.
- Honorable Mention
Name of the film: The Ritual
Director: Álvaro Moriano
Country: Spain
There was quite a lot of humor and comedy around this year… a little dark, sometimes very dark, but it’s good to be able to laugh and smile when life is difficult. Spanish-style humour from Álvaro Moriano. Olé!!
- Honorable Mention
Name of the film: PescAmare
Director: Andrea Lodovichetti
Country: Italy
And Hollywood comes to Kosice! 10yrs ago, a young Italian, Andrea Lodovichetti, won a Golden Beggar with a short thriller. This year he has brought us his new documentary, PESCAMARE, made with his home-town fishing fleet in Fano…
- Honorable mention
Name of the film: The cat next door
Director: Lisa Sallustio
Country: France
From France, Lisa Sallustio gave us her very funny black comedy “”THE CAT NEXT DOOR”, where being helpful to a neighbour becomes a total disaster, as you will see from this extract…
- Honorable mention
Name of the film: Love Reaches Everywhere
Director: Sean Bloomfield
Country: United States
An Honorable Mention to Sean Bloomfield’s Love Reaches Everywhere and we must include a special mention for Gerald Butler’s mother!
- Golden Beggar Award for Young Author
Name of the film: Suburban tale
Director: Péter Goretic
Country: Hungary
Péter Goretic from Hungary, who won the Young Author Golden Beggar, for his Suburban Tale had very strong source material to work with, basing his film on a very black comedy by Roald Dahl.
- Golden Beggar Award for Production Company Name of the film: Ala Kachuu – Take and Run
Director: Maria Brendle
Country: Switzerland
Ala Kachuu means a young girl being kidnapped into marriage in Kyrgyzstan… and that’s the title of Maria Brendle’s Golden Beggar Award-winner from Switzerland, retitled in English Take and Run .
Sezim, who hopes to become a full-time student, is kidnapped and forced to marry a stranger. Torn between her desire for freedom and the constraints of Kyrgyz culture, Sezim desperately seeks a way out. Building trust across very different cultures took Maria and her teams 2 years. 2 years that give us the privilege of watching a very fine film, of learning something new…
- Golden Beggar Award for Local Television
Name of the film: Djurdjevdan is yet to come
Director: Predrag Todorović
Country: TV Centar, Serbia
Every Christian country has its own special story about St George, its own special way of celebrating St George. The people of Oparic in Serbia have ways to celebrate that will be quite different to most of us…
Košice Slovakia
September 21, 2021