The 2023 Bright Horizons Award winner, Banel & Adama, was selected by a prestigious jury of international filmmakers and creatives, all of whom had come together in person to deliberate on this year’s winners. The panel included co-Jury presidents Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman, co-directors of last year’s Bright Horizons-winning Neptune Frost, revered documentarian Alexandre O. Philippe, former Camera d’Or winner Anthony Chen and Indonesian director Kamila Andini.
Scripted in the Pulaar language and featuring a local cast of non-professional actors, Banel & Adama is a haunting fable of star-cross’d lovers set in a rural village. Franco-Senegalese director Ramata-Toulaye Sy has spent the past week in Melbourne as a guest of the festival, together with a number of her fellow Bright Horizons nominees.
Many of the Bright Horizons filmmakers were in the room at tonight’s awards, having travelled to Australia as guests of the festival to introduce their films to MIFF audiences first-hand. Other attending directors include Molly Manning Walker (How to Have Sex), An Pham Thien (Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell), Savanah Leaf (Earth Mama), Mark Leonard Winter (The Rooster) and Noora Niasari (Shayda).
All Bright Horizons titles were screened at MIFF as Australian Premieres – with the exception of Mark Leonard Winter’s The Rooster, a MIFF Premiere Fund film, which made its World Premiere at the festival. Awarded for the first time last year, MIFF’s Bright Horizons Award represents one of the most lucrative film prizes in the world, with the competition designed to recognise new talent by celebrating first and second-time feature directors.
2023 MIFF AWARD WINNERS
Bright Horizons Award presented by VicScreen
Banel & Adama directed by Ramata-Toulaye Sy [left]
Bright Horizons Special Jury Mention
Tótem directed by Lila Avilés
Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award
Soda Jerk (Hello Dankness) – Directors
First Nations Film Creative Award in collaboration with Kearney Group
Adrian Russell Wills and Gillian Moody (Kindred) – Co-Directors
MIFF Audience Award
This Is Going to Be Big directed by Thomas Charles Hyland
MIFF Schools Youth Jury Award
This Is Going to Be Big directed by Thomas Charles Hyland
Of the awards and the 2023 festival season, MIFF Artistic Director, Al Cossar said: “MIFF is thrilled to recognise these incredible filmmakers at the climactic moment of our festival this year. MIFF 2023 has seen audiences rejoin the cinematic fray right across the city and all through country Victoria with a globe-spanning 18 day cinema program, extraordinary international attending artists; amazing discoveries and rediscoveries from the world of cinema, seen first, and for some – only seen – at MIFF this year. A huge congratulations to all of our amazing Award winners, and all of the film teams involved in this year’s festival.”
