‘Ama Gloria’ and ‘Daniel Auerbach’ Scoop Top Prizes At 40th Jerusalem Film Festival
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Marie Amachoukeli’s Ama Gloria has won the Best International Film Prize at the 40th edition of the Jerusalem Film Festival, running from July 13 to July 26.
The feature, which world premiered as the opening film of Cannes Critics’ Week in May, revolves around a motherless six-year-old girl who travels to Cape Verde to reunite with her longtime nanny.
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The jury presided over by Claire Denis, and also figuring Whit Stillman, Florian Zeller, Joana Vicente, and Maria Schrader praised the film’s “extraordinary poignancy, beauty and insight”.
Ama Gloria is produced by Bénédicte Couvreur, the long-time producer of Céline Sciamma and her films Petite Maman and Portrait Of A Lady On Fire.
Other winners in the International Competition include Best Director for Mexico’s Lila Avilés for Berlinale-selected family drama Totem and a Special Mention for the ensemble cast of Argentinian director Rodrigo Moreno’s The Delinquents, which debuted in Un Certain Regard this year.
In the Israeli Film Competition, David Volach’s comedy drama Daniel Auerbach, exploring questions of identity, religion, creativity and sexual identity “in a hyper Jewish way”, won Best Israeli Feature.
Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó (Pieces of a Woman) presided over the jury which also featured Jasmila Žbanić (Quo Vadis, Aida?), Joseph Cedar and Alexandru Belc.
They awarded Syrian director Ehab Tarabieh’s The Taste Of Apples Is Red, set against the backdrop of the Druze community in the Occupied Golan Heights, Best Israeli First Feature.
Other winners in the Israeli Competition included Asaf Saban’s Delegation, about a group of Israeli high school students who travel to Poland on a Holocaust studies trip, which scooped Best Screenplay and the Ensemble Award for the young cast.
Emos Ayeno won Best Performance in an Israeli Feature for Under the Shadow of the Sun, in which he plays a man who goes in search of his son after serving a long jail sentence for the murder of his wife.
Daniel Auerbach swept the craft-focused Israeli Cinema Awards, scooping Best Cinematography for Boaz Yehonatan Yacov, Best Original Score for Yonatan Alblak as well as Best Editing for Haim Tabakman & Lev Goltser, in ex æquo with Ayala Bengad for documentary The Three of Us.
The latter work – about a couple torn between their place in the Israeli Ultra-Orthodox community and the desire to give their autistic son the chance to win independence and be integrated into society – also won Best Israeli Documentary and Best Director in the Israeli Documentary Competition.
Best Documentary Research Award went to Jonathan Avrahami and Assaf Lapid for The Return from the Other Planet.
In other international categories, Croatian drama Safe Place by Juraj Lerotić won best film in the First Feature Competition, judged by Ali Abbasi, Barbara Albert and Sebastian Meise.
The award joins a string of prizes for the drama, about a family dealing with a suicide attempt by one of two adult sons, following wins at Locarno, Sarajevo, Shanghai, Beijing and Malta’s new Mediterrane Film Festival.
Mongolian filmmaker Zoljargal Purevdash’s If Only I Could Hibernate, which debuted in Un Certain Regard, received a Special Mention.
Fernando Guzzoni’s Blanquita won Best Feature Film in the justice and freedom focused In The Spirit of Freedom Competition, judged by Sébastien Lifshitz, Yael Perlov and Manuela Martelli.
The film about a real-life child prostitution scandal that rocked the country in the early 2000s, was Chile’s entry to best international film category for the 2023 Oscars.
In the same competition, Best Documentary went to Tina Satter’s film Reality about the real-life story of whistleblower Lee Winner, based on the exact transcript of the recording of her arrest.
Acknowledging that the film was not officially categorized as a documentary, the In The Spirit Of Freedom jury said: “The director’s choices to use a huis clos situation and strict respect to the dialogue that occurred create an incredible and virtuose mise en scene, between documentary and fiction.”
In other categories Tatiana Huezo’s The Echo won Chantal Akerman Competition, devoted to experimental documentary works, while Paul B. Preciado’s Orlando, My Political Biography and Sergei Loznitsa’s The Kiev Trial received Special Mentions.
The Jerusalem Film Festival continues until Sunday with Justine Triet’s Cannes 2023 Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall as the closing film.
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