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Ecofilms, the International Film & Visual Arts Festival, awarded its Golden Deers at the Rodon open air theater in Rhodes, Greece after the screening of material from the Greek News Archive featuring the evolution of its host island from 1948 to the 1980s.

The jury for the Feature-Length Films shared its first prize (6,000 euro) between 2 movies: Mana: Beyond Belief (USA, 90’) by Peter Friedman and Roger Manley, and Shutka Book of Records (Czech Republic, 78’) by Aleksandar Manic. While the former is an odyssey exploring our believes in objects, the latter is a humorous depiction of the competitive life in the gipsy city of Shutka, Macedonia. The same jury awarded its 2nd prize (3,000 euro) to Dreaming By Numbers by Anna Maria Bucchetti (The Netherlands, 75’) a poetic film on people from Napoli who play numbers inspired by their dreams at the lottery.

The jury for Medium-Length Films gave its first prize (5,000 euro) to Jara Malevez for Lopukhovo (Belgium, 57') a film about life in a forgotten village of the Ukrainian Carpathians. The second prize in this section went to Exile Family Movie (Austria, 55’) by Arash, a film which portrays with respect, humor and sensitivity the struggles of being displaced from one’s homeland and the longing for one’s cultural and family roots.

In the Short Films section, the first prize (3,000 euro) went to Eco Dharma (India, 28’), by Polish-born Malgorzata Skiba, an eye-opening documentary on the Bishnoi community, an Indian tribe that has been placing for centuries the protection of the environment above everything else. The second prize (1,500 euro) went to Ilan Stehberg’s Sea Wolves at the River (Chile, 20’30’’) for its original and subtle narrative. Majed Neisi’s My friend Mr Bull (United Arab Emirates, 21’) received a special mention for documenting a very balanced relationship between man and the environment expressed by the characters of the film.

The Ramsar MedWet Award (3,500 euro) for best film on water and wetlands was given to Rain is Falling (Germany, 14’30’’) by Holger Ernst, an aesthetically filmed story about a young girl giving water to her sick mother. The jury of the Ramsar MedWet section also gave two special mentions to Cyanide Blues (Sweden, 27’) by Zoltan Torok and Freshwater Lands (Venezuela, 50’) by Ana Christina Henriquez.

The Greek cinema center gave the Best Greek Film award (1,500 euro) to Katerina Patroni for O Pinakas - The Painting (Greece, 33’09’’), an intimate portrait of the making of a painting using natural materials. It also gave two special mentions to Koursal (Greece, 62’) by Niko Theodosiou where the search for a floating movie theater reveals uneasy facts about the past of the city of Thessaloniki, and Kifisos, A God’s Awakening (Greece, 36’37’’) by Dionysia Kopana for documenting the transformation of a river into a motorway.

Finally, the Cinema Club of Rodos gave the Audience Award to two films: Rain is Falling (Germany, 14’30’’) by Holger Ernst, and At the Right Time (Italy, 81’) by Luca Gasparini.

The ceremony was followed by a beach party.

Full coverage of Ecofilms 2006 on filmfestivals.com :


Ecofilms kicks off in Rhodes, Greece
Ecofilms features this year some shorts with outstanding aesthetic qualities
Ecofilms opens with Echoes of War
Ecofilms rewards the short film Eco Dharma
Ecofilms pays a tribute to Jonas Mekas
Ecofilms awards its Golden Deers