SOLE LUNA DOC FILM FESTIVAL XX EDIZIONE

Cari Amici e Colleghi,

nell’augurarvi un buon fine anno 2024 e un radioso inizio 2025, desideriamo darvi notizia che quest’anno, per la ventesima edizione del festival, il bando pubblico verrà aperto a gennaio nella piattaforma www.solelunadoc.org.

Potranno iscriversi al concorso film documentari prodotti dopo il 1 gennaio 2023 di qualsiasi durata, che raccontino storie del mondo di oggi e di ieri, esperienze umane di viaggi e di contatti, contesti urbani e rurali, violazioni dei diritti umani e della terra, esempi concreti o proposte di soluzione alle crisi ambientali e umanitarie.

SOLE LUNA DOC FILM FESTIVAL 20th EDITION

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

In wishing you a happy end of 2024 and a bright start to 2025, we would like to inform you that this year, for the twentieth edition of the festival, the public call will be opened in January on the platform www.solelunadoc.org.

Documentary films of any length, produced after 1st January 2023, will be able to enter the competition, which tell stories of the world of today and yesterday, human experiences of jouneys and contacts, urban and rural contexts, violations of human and land rights, concrete examples or proposals for solutions to environmental and humanitarian crises.

INTERNATIONAL JURY

MIGLIOR FILM

Adieu Sauvage, Sergio Guataquira Sarmiento

In this impressive debut documentary film, the director invites the audience to journey into his identity, his “self” with him, to ask the fundamental questions of belonging, origins, sentiment - and to challenge the notion that only words can define emotion, cosmopolitanism, civilization. In this profound film, Adieu Savage addresses the complexities of decolonization and the need to embrace and transform culture on myriad levels of the individual, the people, the peoples.

MIGLIOR CORTOMETRAGGIO

Silence of the Banana Trees, Eneos Çarka

In twenty-four minutes, Silence of the Banana Trees tells the story of a whole life, the narrative of a father and a daughter coming to terms with who they are and what they mean to one another.  And in just a few short moments, this film communicates the very human need for lost and foundness.

MIGLIOR FOTOGRAFIA

Kenya, Gisela Delgadillo

Without objectification, the camera lens allows the protagonists to speak for themselves, to voice their own existences.  At a time when trans lives are endangered, the photographic choices of Kenya ensure that these people may insist on their excruciating humanness.

MIGLIOR REGIA

N'en parlons plus, Cécile Khindria e Vittorio Moroni

In their fluid storytelling, directors Cécile Khindria and Vittorio Moroni demonstrate the tensions between telling a story and lensing a history, between seamlessly blending archival artifact and narrative. Through their directorial decisions, they curate for the audience the complexity and complicity of this still unspoken moment of national memory and the very vivid consequences of this silence.

MIGLIOR MONTAGGIO

Dear Odesa, Kyrylo Naumko

Dear Odesa clearly shows how deliberate and thoughtful editing creates a deeply profound experience for viewers, selecting voices, moments, texts, and vision.  In this film on the violence of war and separation, the editing reveals how cinema, in sound and scene, can portray the silences and gaps in human tragedy.

MIGLIOR SUONO E COLONNA SONORA

Stories from the sea, Jola Wieczorek

With the most delicate refinement, Stories from the Sea balances noise, sound, music, ambience and challenges the listener to see the sea itself as a character in the film. The sound and soundtrack feature the beautiful pas-de-deux between wind and water, woman and ship, nature and humanity.

DOC FOR FUTURE AWARD

Enel Green Power gives the Award Doc for Future to Fragments from Heaven by Adnane Baraka for the ability to tell about the environment,conceived as humanity, earth and  sky as a whole. In this way it is possible to overcome the vision by which the human being put himself at the centre and subjects the nature to his service. Moreover, the film shows the possibility of a dialogue and of a meeting between ancestral and scientific knowledge, a dialogue that has always been crucial,even more today when also fake news silence human exchange. 

FILM FOR OUR FUTURE AWARD

Claw Machine by Georges Salameh. The elements that compose the story are perfectly integrated with each other giving the audience the possibility to immerse and identify themselves with one of the most current and urgent themes of contemporary history: migration flows in the Mediterranean Sea. The cold and stylized black and white animations, the trembling and ruinous narrating voice and the metal and pressing soundtrack create a wonderful and perturbant poetic documentary. Thanks to this the audience are able to identify themselves with the loneliness and distress of those who tell the story.
Claw Machine is a project that has the power to transform the universal theme of migration and war into an intimate and personal tale that is capable of shaking, questioning and enriching the audience.

STUDENTS JURY

Best Feature Film
The Student Jury unanimously recognises Kenya by Gisela Delgadillo as the best feature film for its great social commitment in telling a story too often ignored and forgotten by society. It is a story that involves and excites us, not only because of the skill with which it is told, but also because it concerns us closely. Kenya's story is in fact the story of all the marginalised human beings who live beside us, but who do not live like us. People who suffer day after day but who do not resign and try to fight to be recognised as human beings. The decision to award Kenya the Students' Jury Award is therefore based on our great desire to see something change, on an appeal not to ignore these stories, to try to do better as citizens and as students, in documenting these stories, to stand up against all forms of injustice. Because this story is also the story of all sex workers in our city and beyond.

Special mention
The Student Jury also unanimously awarded a special mention to Adieu Sauvage by Sergio Guataquira Sarmiento, for his commitment to documenting a form of marginalisation, perhaps far away from us, but no less important, namely the exclusion suffered by the indigenous peoples of Colombia. The Jury particularly appreciated the decision to render in black and white an environment as rich in colour as the Amazon rainforest, a choice that highlights the director's intention to focus on the inner dimension of the individuals, with whom he enters into relationship, and with that of nature itself. The film is also a form of denunciation that goes beyond politics, and provokes philosophical and anthropological reflection. 

GIURIA NUOVI ITALIANI

The New Italians Jury, after lively discussion, unanimously recognizes as best short film The SilentProtest: 1929 Jerusalem by Mahasen Nasser Eldin. The documentary does not merely recount a historical fact but enters social dynamics and shows them in all their complexity. The title itself turns silence into protest: the account of Palestinian women and the early feminist movement in Jerusalem is told with clarity and limpid knowledge of the facts. Every technical aspect is in the service of a lucid narrative, and every frame pushes the viewer toward sincere and sudden reflection. The SilentProtest: 1929 Jerusalem uses history to understand the present and imagine the future. A silent stand, a protest against the British High Commission's prejudice against Arabs in the Buraq uprising. It is conscience that wins along with The Silent Protest: 1929 Jerusalem.

The New Italians Jury also recognizes a Special Mention to Serigne, by Rodrigo Hernández, Adriana Cardoso, Edu Marin, for showing the side of a politics made up of ideas, social struggles, openings, closures to be faced. Serigne shows the courage of change, the hope for a better future. It does so by telling Serigne's story, showing his life, even his private life. It renders naked a struggle that is faced every day and this is the strength of the documentary, which is necessary and always relevant.

SOLE LUNA UN PONTE TRA LE CULTURE AWARD

Sole Luna un ponte tra le culture awards Vento Na Fronteira by Laura Faerman and Marina Weis because it brings to our attention a  very current issue with strength and determination: the struggle that indigenous people of Latin America have been fighting for decades. The recognition of their rights for the territories from which they have been dispossessed over the centuries, the last bulwark against the devastation caused by agribusiness.
Through the case of the Guarani-Kaiowa of Mato Grosso do Sul, in Brazil, exemplary of many other similar situations, the work of the filmmakers delivers a fundamental lesson: the importance of telling stories to build bridges between generations, the profound connection between human beings and the Earth, the fact that the Earth belongs to those who care for it.

CINEMATOGRAPHE.IT AWARD
fuori concorso / Sicilia DOC

For the personal and evocative way of portraying death as part of life. Fino alla Fine reestablishes the importance of the farewell ritual, a gesture of love toward loved ones, toward those who remain. Beatrice Perego with Fino alla Fine elaborates a heartbreaking mourning, a way of celebrating her father, who passed away during the most dramatic phase of the pandemic and who, quoting the author, "lived to learn how to die" and whose fate unfortunately wanted him to leave his loved ones, passing on.

AUDIENCE AWARD

Claw machine, Georges Salameh

INTERNATIONAL JURY

BEST FILM

Radiograph of a family, Firouzeh Khosrovani

Through the beautiful and layered language of this film and the intimate and singular story of her family, the director takes us into the deep love of her parents despite their opposite vision of the world while echoing the history of Iran. In this work, there is tenderness, respect and altruism to draw the portrait of a couple, a family, a man, a woman.

Billed as a “sensorial gem”, this film, built with archives is authentic and deals with contemporary issues: religion, war, migration, love.

BEST SHORT FILM

Mama, Pablo de la Chica

A story that explores the fragility of the residue of trauma through the testimony of a moving woman. In the relationship between the protagonist and the chimpanzees, it seems that she can finally reconciliate herself and restarts her life.

BEST PHOTOGRAPHY

Garderie nocturne, Moumouni Sanou

We give an honorable mention to GARDERIE NOCTURNE for addressing one of the most pressing issues in many African countries which is the place of women.

The photography takes a careful look to these African women and mothers who daily struggle to survive while trying to look after their young kids. The DOP, Piere Maillis-Laval was able to capture the interiority and complexity of these women while keeping the right distance, with an accuracy of the framework and the close environment in which these women live.

BEST DIRECTION

Arica, Lars Edman e William Johansson Kalén

The directors of Arica succeed in a sensitive and straightforward way to convey the tragedy of how the disposal of Swedish toxic waste affects the people in a village in Chile all the time bearing respect to the protagonists; never loosening the tension and with a convincing concept of sound vision and editing.

BEST EDITING

Radiograph of a family, Firouzeh Khosrovani

Like a metronome, the editing punctuates the film's rhythm and dramaturgy, succeeding in tying together all its different narrative layers: archival images, voice off, music and filmed images. The old archives become, in the director’s hands, very close to the viewer establishing a personal and intimate relationship with History that we can easily make ours.

BEST SOUND AND MUSIC

Radiograph of a family, Firouzeh Khosrovani

A very poetic film and a smart use of music and sound Voices, echoes, environments, lead you to transform static images into dynamic situations All these without ever screaming. Music and sound are information and emotion at the same time and they bring with the legacy all the joys and sorrows of the story.

The music is a strong element of narration so that the sound and the photos come alive. The music reveals the sense of the movie and is totally integrated into the movie.

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT JURY

The members of the Special Jury, composed of male and female students from the Albert Einstein State Scientific High School, the Istituto Magistrale Statale Camillo Finocchiaro Aprile and of the Liceo Benedetto Croce State Scientific High School of Palermo after a careful and passionate review, award as the best documentary of the section features film of the 17th edition of the Sole Luna Doc Film Festival, the documentary The Last Generation by Mikolaj Borowy, for the following reasons:

- For succeeding in emotionally engaging a young audience, helping them to understand and take on the activists' perspective. The film enables the audience to recognize and appreciate the peaceful but determined spirit of rebellion which is aimed at changing world policies that are more concerned about profit than the state of health of our planet,

- For offering a valuable analysis of the inner conflict that characterizes the lives of activists,
- For the surprising careful editing and framing that allows to empathize with the protagonists while they experience events, making the viewer an integral part of the documentary,

- For the thorough script and photography that make the narration of a well-known theme original,

- For the exceptional soundtrack which is capable of emotionally guiding the viewer during the events showed in the film, as well as representing an element of unity and solidarity among the protagonists.

Special mention to Radiograph of a family.

The members of the Special Jury, moreover, attribute to the documentary Radiograph of a family by Firouzeh Khosrovani a special mention for the following reasons:

- For the director's ability to tell the story of her country through fluid editing, able to move quickly and naturally from individual stories to macro-stories,

- For the sound, a fundamental element of the narrative, characterized by a strong symbolic and emotional meaning,

- For the moral and social value of the documentary as an opportunity to reflect on the conditions of women in Iranian society,

- For its ability to narrate the encounter and dialogue between values, cultures, and different existential perspectives in a respectful and suggestive way,

- For the inclusion and use of photographs that create a completely original and compelling language narrative.

NEW ITALIANS JURY

The New Italians Jury awards the prize for best documentary film of the short film section to Mama by Pablo de la Chica, a work that holds together, in an original way, the feelings of fear, of hope and social redemption. There are two central themes: the need to safeguard the environment and the extinction of numerous animal species, and the rape of women as a weapon of war, which determines victims to a condition of isolation and of impossibility of redemption by denying them a second chance. From here, as in a fairy tale, an invisible thread unravels which connects the history of the primates, the chimpanzees present in a reserve, and this woman, who establishes a unique, inimitable, loyal, pure relationship with them. The "triumph of love" as a wish to find oneself together with others, aiming for a peaceful future for those who will come after us.

SOLE LUNA A BRIDGE BETWEEN CULTURES AWARD
The Alpes, Nael Khleifi
The film is a powerful message of solidarity and humanity and has the ability of narrating without rhetoric the daily actions and efforts of volunteers who, with their simple and "natural" gestures of aid, become true builders of bridges of peace.

DOC FOR FUTURE
Recognition to the project Dadadaun by Teatri alchemici company for the show “Dadalove”

FILM FOR OUR FUTURE AWARD
Mama, Pablo de la Chica

AUDIENCE AWARD
The Spark, Valeria Mazzucchi and Antoine Harari

On the trail of the glaciers

progetto fotografico / photographic project
Fabiano Ventura, project manager

On the trail of the glaciers is a photographic-scientific project that combines photographic comparison and scientific research in order to disseminate the effects of climate change through the observation of changes in glacial masses over the last 150 years. The project represents the largest existing archive of comparative photography on variations of glacial masses; it was conceived and realized by the photographer Fabiano Ventura in collaboration with a technical - creative staff and is supported by aninternational Scientific Committee. The strong communicative power of photographic comparisons, together with the results of scientific research, represents a contribution to the development of a greater awareness about the impact of human activities on climate. The dissemination of the project contents aims at raising public awareness of the need to safeguard natural resources for the protection of future generations.

/ The Tetnuld Mount, Adish Glacier, Djanga and Skara mounts from the heights between Kalda and Adish (Suanetia)

1890 Vittorio Sella – © Fondazione Sella

fotografia moderna / modern photography

Panorama of the Caucasus impressive mountains: mount Tetnuldi (4853m) and mount Skhara (5200m). By comparing the two pictures, after 121 years, the linear retraction of the terminus of the two big glaciers, Adishi e Khalde, it is clearly visible.

2011 Fabiano Ventura – © Associazione Macromicro

video installazione / video installation
The exhibition can be visited from 5 to 10 July 10.00 — 18.00

Sulle tracce dei ghiacciai. Missione in Caucaso

regia / director Marco Preti
fotografia / photography Marco Preti
montaggio / editing Marco Preti, Tommaso Valente
produzione / production SD Cinematografica
Italia 2012, 52' italiano con sottotitoli in inglese / Italy 2012, 52' Italian with English subtitles

After the successful expedition in Karakorum on the glacier of Baltoro, the photographer Fabiano Ventura and his team of scientists continue their mission to in order to study the effects of climatic changes of the most important glaciers of the Earth. The location of the new exploration: the Georgian Caucasus, an area of priceless beauty made it inaccessible for decades by the soviet regime and therefore unspoiled and out of time. Photographic records of explorers of the late nineteenth century have been compared for the first time with the same shots by Fabiano Ventura and have been scientifically analyzed to determine the “state of health” of some of the most important glaciers of the world.

Palermo: photography, the mental issue of the Ospedale Psichiatrico of via Pindemonte, life and death, love and old age. These are just a few of the themes addressed by the great photographer Letizia Battaglia in a “closer encounter” with Franco Maresco, that finally sees the light after twenty years of waiting. The result is an intense and unpublished story of a city that Letizia Battaglia made known to the world as brutally violent but without forgetting its grace, innocence and determination to never give up.

regia / director
Franco Maresco
fotografia / photography
Alessandro Abate
montaggio / editing
Francesco Guttuso
produzione / production
Lumpen
Italia 2016, 30'
italiano con sottotitoli in inglese / Italy 2016, 30' Italian with English subtitles

The festival has always presented, in its film exhibitions, documentaries that show alert situations and exhort respect for our planet and this new edition deals with the urgency of the environmental issue as well. Some films in competition, such as The Last Generation by Mikołaj Borowy and Arica by Lars Edman and William Johansson Kalén, invite us to reflect on this topic. So do Vittorio De Seta's short films that focus on the delicate and complex relationship between human beings and the environment.
For the second consecutive year, we also reintroduced the out-of-competition Ambiente Doc section, entirely dedicated to the themes of sustainability and climate change.
Thanks to the sensitivity of our main sponsor, Enel Green Power, the festival opens with the presentation of the project Sulle tracce dei ghiacciai by the photographer Fabiano Ventura. It analyses the climate change effects by observing changes in glacier masses over the past 150 years through a process of comparative photography. The global project, including 6 expeditions over 10 years to the Earth's most important mountain glaciers (Karakorum 2009, Caucasus 2011, Alaska 2013, Andes 2016, Himalaya 2018, Alps 2020) will be introduced by Ventura, accompanied by both a video-installation and a screening of the documentary Sulle tracce dei ghiacciai. Missione in Caucaso.
A special focus is dedicated to the sea, with documentaries that, with different sensitivities, present the seriousness of its health: with the work Nobilis Golden Moon, by the artist Mariagrazia Pontorno, we will get to know the “Sentinel of the Mediterranean”, the Pinna Nobilis, a mussel that exceeds the height of a metre, at risk of disappearing, narrated between science and magical thought. With Above the Water, we will meet Wayan, a ninety-year-old Balinese fisherman and his daily dedication to return to fishing, while in Habiter le seuil we will follow the choreographer Marine Chesnais in her otherworldly performances underwater with no breathing apparatus. The selection is closed by the reportage Missione Euridice of two divers, Marco and Andrea Spinelli, that removed some abandoned nets from the coast of Cefalù.
In collaboration with the ecologist association Mare Vivo, we will present an educational meeting on microplastics with Antonio Ragusa, author of the book Nati con la camicia... di plastica (Aboca edizioni, 2021), which tells how microplastics are already present in the placenta of the womb. The work Madre Plastica by Fabrizia Capostagno, winner of the first edition of the Marine Litter Art competition, will be exhibited on this occasion.

INTERNATIONAL JURY AWARD

Best doc

Il mio corpo, Michele Pennetta

For giving voice to submerged worlds that live suspended on the margins of our time, bringing back a part of humanity capable of photographing life suspended in time. For putting back in the light marginalized bodies and forgotten lives. In honor of the thousands of people who died attempting to reach these shores.

TRAILER

Best short doc

The golden buttons, Alex Evstigneev

As in a thriller, the film sheds light on one of the dark sides of contemporary Russia by investigating with rhythm, image and suggestion a child's world crushed by militarism and propaganda.  The director masterfully utilizes logistical limitations to their artistic advantage and, thus, creates a singular work that without those obstacles and response to them would not have occurred.

TRAILER

Best direction

Fiancèes, Julia Bünter

For the rare intimacy captured on camera, Fiancees, director Julia Bünter excelled in gaining the trust of her subjects and featuring fly-on-the wall moments that are cinematic gold. Her empathic work places her in the esteemed tradition of direct cinema and such legendary documentar artists as the Maysles brothers, Agnès Varda, D.A. Pennebaker, and Barbara Kopple.

TRAILER

Best photography

Rhythms of lost time, Anisa Sabiri

For the quality of the forma, the right distance between the narrator and the narrative: in Rhythms of Lost Time Alexey Venzos portrayed with sensitivity not only people but also their culture, translating emotions about life and death. 

TRAILER

Best editing

Il mio corpo, Michele Pennetta

For the power of the narrative and of the emotions within, Orsola Valenti e Damian Plandolit created in Il mio corpo an equilibrium between two parallel worlds inhabited by people resisting to difficult contexts and in difficult times.

TRAILER

Soundrivemotion award | Best sound design

A Black Jesus, Luca Lucchesi

From the beginning of the film, music presents itself in an important way as a trait d'union of the story, and creates a narrative using languages that are sometimes dramatic, nostalgic, but also ironic and joyful, creating a path of emotions that integrate very well with the ambient sound and the great presence of diegetic music.

A skilful mix of original music, music taken from the environment and sound design.

TRAILER

High school students award | Best doc

A Black Jesus, Luca Lucchesi

The members of the Special Jury, composed of students from the secondary schools Liceo Scientifico Statale Albert Einstein of Palermo, Istituto Magistrale Statale Camillo Finocchiaro Aprile of Palermo and Istituto di Istruzione Superiore Abramo Lincoln of Enna, after careful and enthusiastic viewing, chose as best documentary film for the 16th edition of the Sole Luna Doc Film Festival, A Black Jesus by Luca Lucchesi, with the following motivations: 

• For the original editing and screenplay, dealing with issues such as racism and xenophobia in a revolutionary and innovative perspective, that makes the documentary engaging;

• For the great soundtrack that accompanies the whole film, composed by Roy Paci’s music, the choral presence of the town of Siculiana, showed to the audience through several and evocative faceless voices, the beautiful Sicilian typical melodies that contributed to emphasize the geographical identity of the documentary;
• For the wonderful photography that, through the alternation of medium, long shots and different camera angles, as well as the vividness of colors, describes essential aspects of the Sicilian territory and its history;

• For the choice of describing, through the contradictions of the characters, the complex relation between the new need for integration and a Sicily withdrawn into itself and its poverty, despite a tradition of cultural openness represented by the Black Jesus;
• For the value-driven director's choice to show, with great respect for other positions, his opposition to populist and inconclusive politics that exploits other human beings as instruments of propaganda to fan the flames of racism.

TRAILER

High school students award | Special mention

I, Mary, Aliki Saragas-Georgiou

The members of the Special Jury give a special mention also to the documentary I, Mary by Aliki Saragas-Georgiou for the following motivations:

• For the screenplay that, through the life of Mary, a resilient and generous woman, enabled to make us, young people, aware of the difficult life for albinos in South Africa.
• For the strength of the documentary in leading the audience to question the role that traditions play within a community and their potential discriminatory consequences for some of its members.
• For the moral and existential strength of the protagonist, that makes her an example of human being able to bear the burden of discrimination and loneliness even within the family, without ever stopping the fight for creating awareness among other people suffering similar humiliations and building a world that is more respectful of human diversity.
• For the accurate and symbolic editing which, through a delicate composition of real life scenes and interviews with the protagonist, inspires a strong empathic response in the audience.
• For showing the innovative role of Internet in the girl's life, through which Mary managed to express herself and denounce the forms of discrimination that albinos are still suffering today.

TRAILER

"New Italians" Jury Award - Best short doc

The golden buttons, Alex Evstigneev

The film manages to give an intimate insight into the military academy, in an original way as it surprises the viewers with soft, emotional and sensitive scenes, different from what they might expect from the personal army of Putin. The story is portrayed through the shots and frames of the photo camera, offering hidden stories and images, however easy to understand. Finally, the music complements the story and the feelings of the film.

TRAILER

"New Italians" Jury Award - Special mention

Memory of the land, Samira Badran

Memory of the land receives the special mention for the engaging story and the way it manages to convey the strong emotions that someone can feel in that situation. The legs become the protagonists and representatives of the world, and the story, and transmit perfectly the various emotions linked to suppression and violence.

The animations have been made very well, particularly the contrast between the cold fixed images, and the warmer ones in movement, and the balance between real images and animations. The documentary is made in such a way that it does not only represent one land, or group, but that actually, through these drawings and movements, many other stories and tragedies can be told. 

TRAILER

Audience prize -Best Doc

The village resist, David Bert, Joris Dhert

TRAILER