➢ Omar A. Razzak’s feature film and María Abenia Gracia’s short film win the Canarias Cinema awards
➢ The film I Had a Life, made by Octavio Guerra, receives a special mention from the jury.
➢ The short film Shirampari: Legacies of the River, by Lucía Flórez, obtains the Digital 104 International Distribution Award and also a special mention from the Canarias Cinema Jury
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Monday, April 17, 2023.- Killing Crabs, by director Omar A. Razzak, and Circe, by María Abenia Gracia, have won the Richard Leacock Awards for Best Feature Film and Best Short Film at the 22nd Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival. The jury in charge of evaluating the works selected in the Canarias Cinema section, made up of Ione Atenea, Virginia Pablos and Suso Novás Andrade, announced their decision this morning, Monday, April 17, during a press conference held at the Hotel Cristina by Tigotan, where the awards were read and handed out.
The jury has awarded, among the five titles competing in this edition, the feature film Killing Crabs (Spain, Netherlands, 2023, 106 min.) “for its panoramic portrayal of a disenchanted paradise on the verge of changing and for reflecting the feeling of emptiness about the things that could have been but were not from a child and adolescent perspective.” The Festival will grant a prize of 3,000 euros to its director.
The Richard Leacock Award for Best Short Film, endowed with 1,500 euros, went to the work presented by María Abenia Gracia Circe (Spain, 2022, 29 min.). The jury highlighted the short film’s “singular capacity to capture the relationships between peoples, their mythology and their heterodox cultural heritage through a successful mise-en-scene, which chooses to underline cinema’s sensorial capacity while dialoguing with seminal film trends.”
Filmmaker Ione Atenea and festival programmers and directors Virginia Pablos and Suso Novás Andrade also gave two other awards to the twelve pieces competing in the Canarian section. In the feature film category, I Had a Life (Spain, 2023, 71 min.), by Octavio Guerra, received a special mention from the jury “for its thoughtful depiction of the consequences and possible solutions to homelessness and for its questioning of welfare policies from a wise observational standpoint.” Furthermore, they granted a special mention to the short film Shirampari: Legacies of the River (Spain, 2022, 16 min.), a work by Lucía Flórez, for her ability to “make the audience a privileged witness of an aboriginal community’s resistance in the contemporary world, with special emphasis on cultural transmission as the main guaranteeing factor of their survival.”
Before announcing the awards, the three members of the jury thanked all filmmakers for their participation in the festival and congratulated the programming team for their selection, as well as for their firm commitment to local directors and producers and, in particular, to emerging talent.
Digital 104 International Distribution Award
In addition to the awards given by the Canarias Cinema Jury, the works competing in the section are eligible for a distribution award granted by the Canarian audiovisual production company Digital 104.
The Digital 104 Jury, made up of Domingo J. González, Jonay García and Andrea García, has also given their International Distribution Award to Lucía Flórez’s short film, Shirampari: Legacies of the River “for the natural way in which it introduces us to an indigenous community of the Peruvian Amazon by the hand of a child about to say goodbye to his childhood.”
The short film will receive a year-long international distribution strategy, advice, management, inscriptions and submissions to national and international festivals for by the company Digital 104.
The Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival, organized by the Culture area of the Gran-Canarian capital’s City Council through Promoción de la Ciudad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, has received public assistance by the ICAA [Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts] and the program for the internationalization of Spanish culture, PICE Visitantes, of Acción Cultural Española (AC/E).
Among the Festival’s collaborators we may find Cinesa El Muelle, El Muelle Shopping Center, Hotel Cristina by Tigotan, the Elder Museum of Science and Technology or Casa África, places which also function as venues or hold activities of the film event; as well as other institutions and companies such as Sagulpa, Hospitales San Roque, Audiovisuales Canarias, Music Library & SFX or the International Bach Festival. Likewise, its market, MECAS, has been possible thanks to the sponsorship of the Gran Canaria Film Commission-Sociedad de Promoción Económica de Gran Canaria and the support of Canary Islands Film and Proexca.
The University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the Mid Atlantic University, the the CIFP Felo Monzón Grau-Bassas, the Canary Islands Film Institute, the Audiovisual Cluster of the Canary Islands, Digital 104, CIMA [Association of Women Filmmakers and Audiovisual Media], the Asociación Microclima Cineastas de Canarias [Association of Filmmakers of the Canary Islands ‘Microclima’] and Tusity are also collaborators of the Festival.
Share this Post