SILVER EYE AWARD FOR "SNAILS" AND "CASA BLANCA"
Polish documentary film can boast a success at the East Silver Market, accompanying the International Documentary Film Festival in Jihlava. Two Polish productions were given the Silver Eye Awards there.
The Silver Eye Awards are given since 2009 - they are the awards for the best documentary films participating in the East Silver Market. The Silver Eye is an award given to the producer, and not the film's director. The award is intended to support the promotion and international distribution of the film.
The films participating in the market are divided into three categories: short, mid-length and feature-length. This year, eight Polish documentary films were nominated for the Silver Eye Awards: The Main Award in the short documentary film category went to the film "Snails" by Grzegorz Szczepaniak. The jury appreciated the film for its brilliant sense of humour, amazing script and "joy of life" beaming from the passionate protagonists. In this section, the films were assessed by: Isis Graham from the Influence Film Club, Diane Henderson from the International Film Festival in Edinburgh and Melissa Lindgren from the Tempo Documentary Film Festival.
In the mid-length documentary film category, the Best Film award went to Aleksandra Maciuszek for "Casa Blanca" The jury was delighted by the way the film shows love, but at the same time interdependence of mother and son. According to the jury, consisting of: Sara Garcia Villaneuva from Play-Doc, Maja Lindquist, from Doc Lounge and Nordisk Panorama and Stuart William Sloan from Second Chance Cinema, the documentary film by Aleksandra Maciuszek tells a traditional story in an extremely fresh and inventive way.
It is worthwhile to add that in the feature-length film category, Barbara Orlicz-Szczypuła, the vice-president of Krakow Film Foundation and the Director of Programme Office at Krakow Film Festival, sat on the jury.
The winners, in addition to the statuette, were given cash prize and annual representation of the film in East Silver Caravan, which equals the promotion of the award-winning films at over 100 of the most important film festivals on the world.
You can read more about the Silver Eye Awards here.