Kustendorf 2023 Awards: Jury Decisions

Golden Egg

With inventive visual imagery, and clever storytelling, the film Letter to a Pig leads the viewer through the consciousness of a young schoolgirl – as a means of processing and deconstructing the trauma of the unimaginable. Leaving the audience with a deeper sense of human compassion. For this extraordinary achievement we award director Tal Kantor with the Golden Egg Award.

Silver Egg

Utilizing a masterful array of skills, the director of Snow in September confidently presents a gentle story of the turmoil facing a teenage Relationship, capturing those elusive moments of emotion that resonate strongly long after the film ends. The Jury would like to award the silver Egg to Dulmaa Purev-Ochir for her cinematic achievements.

Bronze Egg

With bold choices both in screenwriting and mise-en-scene, The film Affricate cleverly centers around an over-protective Mother, wonderfully performed by the lead actress. The surprising twists of plot lead to a sense of freedom often lacking in the constraints of life. The Jury wishes to award the Bronze Egg to Anna Gyimesi.

Special Mention of the Jury

Special Mention of the Jury would like to commend the director Of More than Living, Aleksandra Lazarovski, for guiding a well cast ensemble of actors to tenderly depict the subtle intricacies of personal conflict the characters face.

Vinko Filač Award

Among many quite professionally shot films where film photography is an integral part of the narrative itself, in this year’s selection there were a few outstanding films in the way of visual methods used to tell the film story. As the dominant media line of each film, which is in its core polymedia art, film photography which, when it is extraordinary, has the power to transform a piece of cinema into an extremely visual narrative. The Vinko Filač award jury has decided to give this award to the film which mostly communicates with the audience through the film photography and extraordinary use of camera. For the authors of the film On Xerxes Throne and above all for the director of photography of this remarkable film, the jury has decided to give the Vinko Filač award to Evan Maragkoudakis.