Dialëktus Film Festival Awards
The festival in Budapest ended with the main award being given to Peter Kerekes for his excellent ”Cooking History”, reviewed and mentioned on this site several times. The jury consisted of Bojána Papp director (Hungary), Adina Bradeanu director and film critic (Romania) and András Müllner aesthete (Hungary). They gave the following motivation and some general remarks on the state of the art of documentary:
„We will start by noting that the international documentary competition at Dialektus has confronted us with a wide range of documentary films which were not only displaying different levels of artistic accomplishment but have also, stylistically, made us reflect on the wide range of possibilities opened to documentary film-makers today – meaning by that what exactly we, as audiences, are ready to accept as ‘documentary film’ today, as opposed to, say, 50 years ago.
Some of the films screened have already been extensively awarded in the past year, subsequently reaching a status of almost ‘canonical’ works within the field of documentary film-making – we refer here to films such as Helena Trestikova’s RENE and Kim Longinotto’s ROUGH AUNTIES. Some others presented themselves as straightforward, at the same time entertaining and
chilly stories of access to yet uncharted political contexts – the case of |Linda Jablonska’s WELCOME TO NORTH KOREA. Finally, some of these films introduced some wonderful, inspiring and powerful characters portrayed with compassion; characters which, although confronted with adverse conditions, did not allow themselves the luxury of self-victimisation and engaged on paths able to empower them and inspire others.”
„And it was by thinking about that sense of widened possibilities within the field of documentary film-making today that we decided to give the main award of our section to a film that stood out by being dramatically different from all the others – a piece of elaborate film-making, which incorporates extensive staging and reconstruction to come up with a fresh perspective on the various bloodsheds witnessed by Europe from World War II onwards, by bringing imagination, perspective and a pinch of salt to our often didactic and linear understanding of history. The main award in the International Documentary section goes to a film that appeared to us as the most accomplished embodiment of the term ‘creative documentary’: COOKING HISTORY, by Peter Kerekes.”
„Documentary has been for decades a genre able to inspire crowds and spread hope among the disenfranchised – and in this perspective, our commendation this year goes to GROWN IN DETROIT, a documentary about a group of underage mothers or mothers-to-be at the Catherine Ferguson Academy in Detroit, who remain serene and start a small agro-business by which they redeem both themselves and their battered city.”
