Winning films give powerful insight into the diversity of lives and perspectives.
During the 17th edition of Go Short tonight, the coveted Go Short Awards were presented during a live show. The awards are an important springboard for the Oscars, BAFTA, and European Film Awards, among others. From a packed auditorium at LUX, in Nijmegen's hometown, the jury announced to filmmakers who had won the prizes.
In the Dutch Competition, Where is My Sex Drive by Nina Broers walked away with the main prize. The prize for best European fiction film was awarded to Those Who Move by Stephanie Ricci, while Territory by Swiss director Felix Scherrer was named best student film.
Within the same competition, Mother's Child by the Dutch Naomi Noir received an honorable mention. The Youth Jury chose Sign and See the World by Safi Graauw as their winner. New this year was the Senior Jury, who designated Her Body by Daphne Lucker as their favorite.
Dutch competition
Where Is My Sex Drive by Nina Broers was awarded the award for best Dutch film by the professional jury. With a hyperrealistic but fictional making-of, this film reveals the power dynamics hidden in stories of consent. It shows how a man can take control of a project that was meant precisely to make him aware of his own position. In a highly disruptive film design, the director continues to ask questions about masculinity, power relations, and patriarchy. In reclaiming her project, she also reclaims her voice - and leaves us with a powerful manifesto.
New Arrivals competition
The jury was deeply impressed by Felix Scherrer's bold and courageous approach to his film, Territory. He points the camera at justice and calls it crystal clear. In a thrilling and layered way, he uses the essay form to expose different levels of complicity, visible in grand structures such as architecture, but also in everyday interactions, such as a telephone conversation. His political indictment of surveillance, oppression and the police state resonates and transcends the borders of his own country. A special mention in this competition goes to the film Mother's Child by the Dutch Naomi Noir.
European Film Awards
Theo Panagopoulos was nominated by the jury as a candidate for the European Film Awards with his film The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing. Reappropriating a colonial gaze and turning it into an act of remembrance, this film commemorates the archive as a living, breathing space. Making connections between ecology and exile, presence and erasure, the film offers a deeply political, yet poetic form of resistance
European competition
In the best European fiction category, Stephanie Ricci's Those Who Move won prizes. It is a sensitive and intimate portrait of a woman, balancing between two lives. With a graceful narrative style and bold, outspoken, queer and authentic language, this film captures the quiet struggles of migration, identity and desire.
The award for best European Animation went to And Granny Would Dance by Maryam Mohajer. With warmth and subtle rebellion, it honors the strength and spirit of women coming together, grieving, and persevering. It challenges the art of animation, where colors and textures merge into a story in itself.
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing by Theo Panagopoulos falls for a second time and also received the award for best European documentary.
Music Video Competition
Kater by Switzerland's Garrick Lauterbach won the award for best music video. 'This film knocks you over with a soup of raw reality and a hallucinatory animation style- floating cats, sneaky politics and a hybrid form that runs on its own chaotic energy' said the jury.
In this competition, a Special Mention was also given to Goodbye to Mercury by Sonja van Hamel. Film and music are strongly intertwined as the filmmaker is also the songwriter, performer, and protagonist.
Youth Award
A special youth jury from New Rootz threw itself into the task of choosing the most appealing film for young people. The film they chose, Sign and See the World by Safi Graauw, is an important film about an underexposed subject: the role of the Dutch colonies in World War II, viewed from a Surinamese perspective. There are hundreds of films about World War II, but none of them name the important role black people played in the liberation of Europe. This film sheds light on that.
In addition, a Special Mention was awarded to My Homeland by Tabarak Abbas. Her work depicts the thoughts of a girl from a refugee background, presenting her parents as superheroes.
Senior Award
Go Short put together a Senior Jury with Club Gold for the first time this year, adding an award. The jury chose Her Body by Dutch Daphne Lucker as its winner. A surprising and dynamic film with an intriguing dance between mother and daughter. A Special Mention went to Shoes and Hooves by Hungarian Viktória Traub, in which the message about diversity and holding up facades that we can both read poorly and change is beautifully translated into animation.
Audience Award
The audience also made their voices heard en masse, calling out Sign and See the World by Safi Graauw, who also received the Youth Award, as the winner of the Audience Award.
