The prize for the SMART7 competition, the European network of film festivals of which IndieLisboa participates, was awarded today during the award ceremony of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece, and the winner was the Portuguese representative ÍNDIA, by Telmo Churro.
With the aim of strengthening and promoting the international circulation of European films, the SMART7 film festival network hosted a competition section where seven films (one from each participating country) competed for the SMART7 Award, which includes a cash prize of €5,000. The network is made up of seven European film festivals: New Horizons International Film Festival (Poland), IndieLisboa – International Film Festival (Portugal), Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Greece), Transylvania International Film Festival (Romania), FILMADRID International Film Festival (Spain), Reykjavik International Film Festival (Iceland) and Vilnius Kino Pavasaris International Film Festival (Lithuania). The jury is made up of students from the countries that are part of the network: Svein Aki Arnason, Yiannis Delikostas, Amaya Thafiaur, Greta Meselikaite, Adam Mitnik, Alma Buhagiar and Kenia Polheim Nunes.
All the festivals incorporated the programme developed and worked closely together, respecting their own identity and programming criteria. The list of films in competition included the following titles: Black Stone, by Spiros Jacovides (Greece); Bread and Salt, by Damian Kocur (Poland); ÍNDIA, by Telmo Churro (Portugal); Mammalia, by Sebastian Mihailescu (Romania); Mannvirki, by Gústav Geir Bollason (Iceland); Remember to Blink, by Austėja Urbaitė (Lithuania) and Secaderos, by Rocío Mesa (Spain).
Today, during the awards ceremony of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece, the SMART7 jury thanked the festivals for the opportunity to see and discuss these films and congratulated the 7 films for bringing innovative perspectives from their home countries and sharing them with the audience. They then awarded the prize:
“In the spirit of celebrating the European Cultural diversity, the SMART7 Award goes to a film that reflects several dualities: individual and collective, the historical and personal space of memory and nostalgia and their national and international implications. The chosen film is recollection of a history of cinema and historic heritage explored through a post-modern approach and a childlike curiosity. It’s a multi-generational tale that not only explores the retelling of an ancient and complex History, but also navigates, the pure and universal topics of love, death and perpetual pursue of identity. For these reasons, the jury has chosen the Portuguese film India, by Telmo Churro as the winner of the first edition of the SMART7 Competition.”
ÍNDIA, Telmo Churro, Portugal, 2022
The film will be in cinemas in Portugal from November 23.
