The “ECOVISION FESTIVAL 2007 edition”, International Festival of Environment and Cinema, under the High Sponsorship of the National Italian Commission for UNESCO, the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of the Infrastructures and the Transports and the Presidency of Sicilian Region, also for the third edition, was carried out, in Palermo, Italy, in the prestigious setting of the Botanical Garden, from the May 31 to the June 5, 2007.
The Botanical Garden, as know as one of the most ancients of the world, and with the greatest variety of plants of Europe, is the ideal setting for an echo-environmental festival, that will catalyze, like in the past, the interest of authors of the audiovisual scope, coming from every part of the world, involved in the safeguard of the environment, that will want to confront themselves with the own works.
The evidence is the number of the countries that have participated, sending works of fiction and documentary from every part of the world, from the United Arab Emirates to Polynesia, from Chile to India, beyond 75 countries of which, as a result of an hard selection made from the international Jury, only 100 directors has been admitted to participate in the competition, coming from 37 countries of the world.
100 films in competition, 76 the participating countries, 37 the selected countries. A wide and articulated program that conjugates the investigation on the present time to the historical ones on the relationship between cinema and environment.
Through the cinematographic work, will be explored the natural environment, the relationships and the effects of the globalization on the sustainable development, the ambiguities of the modernization, the relationships between people, the biodiversity, the relationship the man has with the human perversion.
This because the cinema spreads ideas not only orally, but expressing them visually and, above all, arranging sounds and images, proposing emotions and thoughts, going to shake immediately the consciences of the public.
Protagonists of this third edition, thanks to a capillary research of authors and works of unquestionable quality, that often operate in underestimate circuits and to which does not given the just acknowledgment for the creative valence and the refined technical of realization, will be the works admitted in competition and selected from a team of experts.
Absolute news of the EcoVision Festival 2007, is been the institution of the "Great Prize EcoVision 2007 FONDAZIONE BANCO DI SICILIA", this year gained from the Greek director Yorgos Avgeropoulos with his documentary film "Delta Oil’s Dirty Business", that he has received the within prize of € 20.000.
Other cash prizes was assigned to:
Via Bentivegna, 51/55/57 90139 Palermo Tel. 091/332567 – 324397 P.IVA 0364 0930 82
E-MAIL: danieleottobre@ecovisionfestival.com
• AMG PRIZE FOR THE BEST FICTION FILM
of € 3.500 offered by AMG (Azienda Municipalizzata del Gas) to:
“GO WEST” (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
by Ahmed Imamovic
for the dramatic representation of a condition of discomfort and alienation in a picture of an atrocious ethnic war.
• AMAP PRIZE FOR THE BEST DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE WATER RESOURCES
of € 2.000 offered by AMAP (Azienda Municipalizzata Acquedotto Palermo) to:
“ONE WATER” (USA)
by Sanjeev Chatterjee
for the clear visual synthesis, got by shooting in 14 Countries in the world, for the fondamental contribution of the water in our life.
• PRIZE FOR THE BEST ENVIRONMENTAL DOCUMENTARY FILM
of € 1.500 offered by the Festival to:
“THE QUEEN OF TREES” (United Kingdom / Kenya)
by Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone
for the suggestive representation of the whole ecosystem, from plants to fruits, from insects to animals of big dimension, around a colossal fig tree.
• PRIZE OF THE PUBLIC
of 1.000 offered by the Festival to:
“SOTTO IL CIELO DI AHMEDABAD” (Italy)
by Stefano Rebechi and Francesca Lignola
for the touched image of a social emarginated children group during a traditional Indian cerimony.
More over the Jury had awarded, the following special prizes:
• PRIZE FOR THE BEST ANIMATION FILM
to
“QUATRO ELEMENTOS” (Portugal)
by Janek Pfeifer
for the visual imagination with which the film exprimes the shift from the complexity of our planet to the semplicity of the four elements.
• PRIZE FOR THE BEST INDEPENDENT FILM
to
“BOCCIOLI DI RABBIA” (Italy)
by Michela Guberti
for the exceptionality of a report about woman in Afghanistan today, realized with intelligence and courage.
Via Bentivegna, 51/55/57 90139 Palermo Tel. 091/332567 – 324397 P.IVA 0364 0930 82
E-MAIL: danieleottobre@ecovisionfestival.com
• PRIZE FOR THE BEST FILM ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENVIRONMENT, CULTURE AND HISTORY
to
“TEN QUESTIONS FOR THE DALAI LAMA” (USA)
by Richard Ray
for the serious review of the Tibetan situation, based on an extraordinary meeting with a great spiritual leader and on a succession of live shots and precious historical footage.
• PRIZE FOR THE BEST REPORTAGE
to
“CRY SEA” (Italy)
by Cafi Mohamud and Luca Cusani
for the ability to report with clearness the fishing problems in the Senegalese sea and the difficult relationship with the Western part of the world.
More over, the Jury has awarded for this category a SPECIAL MENTION to:
o “LESSONS FROM BAM” (Austria/Iran)
by Alireza Ghanie
for the sharing picture of a school-children that shoots the lessons on open air space after the destruction of them village caused by an earthquake.
• PRIZE FOR THE BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM ABOUT THE CUSTOMS OF A COUNTRY
to
“BARTOLO, DER STREUNER – EIN HUNDELEBEN IN NEAPEL (Napoli Dogs) (Austria)
by Barbara Fally-Puskas
for the spirit of observation about the custom, the behaviours and the people of a town, through the dogs live there as well.
• PRIZE FOR THE BEST DOCUMENTARY ABOUT A TERRITORY
to
“DIE MAGIE DER MONGOLEI” (Wild Mongolia) (Austria)
by Heinz Leger
for the fascinating portrait of a region on the whole of its environment: man and woman, style of life, fauna and flora and landscape.
• PRIZE FOR THE BEST SHORT FILM
to
“UOVA” (Italy)
by Alessandro Celli
for the narrative ability of a tale narrated in only four minutes that, through a small story of everyday life, turns into a metaphor of acoustic damages of the urban habitat.
Via Bentivegna, 51/55/57 90139 Palermo Tel. 091/332567 – 324397 P.IVA 0364 0930 82
E-MAIL: danieleottobre@ecovisionfestival.com
The EcoVision Festival, places like an annual appointment of cultural debate and meeting, encouraged also by a public of about 2.000 daily attendances, in order to be confronted on the good rules to follow for the safeguard and the development of the environment and on the importance of the cinematographic and multimedia communication.
The EcoVisionFestival 2007 is, surely, an appointment of sure interest and unavoidable for all the operating ones engaged in the support and in the realization of initiatives, that are striven for the safeguard of the ecosystem and of the cultural traditions and that want to promote informative and educational actions of environmental recovery, promoting life styles dictated from the no-violence and the respect of the values and the common assets.
The Jury was composed by: Foreman of the Jury: Prof. Ernesto Laura: writer, historian, cinematographic critic, that in past was director of the International Extension of Cinematographic Art of Venice;
Members of the Jury: Jurij Bajkovkij, Artistic Director of the environmental festival “Vertical” in Moscow (Russia), Olga Zubkova, Russian director and filmmaker; Joan Salarich, Artistic Director of the environmental film festival in Torello (Spain), Angelo Bagnato, Director-General of the Biennale di Venezia (Italy), Gregorio Napoli, journalist for daily “Giornale di Sicilia”, film critic and assayst, founder member of Italian Syndacate of film critics.
Every day at 3,30 p.m. the screenings had beginning until 7,30 p.m. and also on June 3, 4 and 5 from 10,00 a.m until 1,30 p.m., in the Cinema ABC. From 9,00 p.m. until late night the screenings continued in the Botanical Garden, where a parterre of 800 places was located in an auditorium dipped in the green of the wonderful vegetation.
The admission was free until to exhaustion seats, and also this year the productions are been introduced from numerous foreign televisions, that confirm a contribution of unquestionable cinematographic and documentary valence; they are not, moreover, missing fictions with an environmental-social topic.
The presenter of the festival has been Gloria Bellicchi, famous Italian correspondent of the Mediaset television program “Pianeta Mare” who, beyond introducing films, has interviewed during the screenings the present directors, that this year, although they came from far countries like the Vietnam or the Finland, have received ours invite and have participated actively, being confronted with the colleagues and beginning a collaboration process, placing also the Sicily like location for their next productions.
Chatelin Bruno 
