‘Saint Omer’ Wins Top Prize at Palm Springs International Film Festival

This wraps up the 34th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival.

The desert festival rolled on Sunday with the announcement of this year’s list of award winners, including jury awards and audience awards. The highest accolade – the Fipresci Prize, awarded by a special panel of international film critics who reviewed 35 out of 93 official entries for the International Feature Films category of the Academy Awards – was Alice Diop’s legal drama Holy Omer.

The jury praised the French film for questioning issues of society, culture, race and gender. “By leveraging the skills of her technical team, Diop is turning things around Holy Omer into a smart, compelling, ambitious and compelling film that inspires metafictional awareness while remaining lucid and unsentimental,” the jury said in a statement.

Other Fipresci prizes went to screenwriters Carla Simón and Arnau Vilaró Alcarras for international screenplay (Spain), Oksana Cherkashyna Klondike for Best Actress in an International Feature Film (Ukraine) and Ali Junejo joy land for Best Actor in an International Feature Film (Pakistan). The Fipresci jury consisted of Andrew Kendall from Stabroek News, Anders E. Larsson from Lund Fantastic Film Festival and Robert Horton from herald and Seattle weekly.

The Best Documentary Award went to Nisha Pahuja Kill a tiger. “The filmmakers’ sensitivity to the subjects’ experiences and their poignant capture of shifting tones is an excellent use of the genre, resulting in a remarkable story that portrays a profile of an enduring father-daughter bond that exemplifies social development.” , so the reasoning of the jury. Diana Cadavid, director of LALIFF and FICCALI, filmmaker Amir George and film festival programmer Robin Robinson were part of this jury.

The New Voices New Visions Award went to The damned do not cry by director Fyzal Boulifa. The Ibero-American Prize – awarded to the best film from Latin America, Spain or Portugal – went to director Manuela Martelli Chile ’76. The local jury award honored So Yun Ums Liquor Store Dreams. The Young Cinematographers Award Anthony Shims Riceboy is sleeping While the Mozaik Bridging the Borders Award went to Wissam Charaf Dirty Difficult Dangerous along with a $2,500 cash prize.

Two audience awards were also given to Santiago Miter Argentina, 1985 won for Best Feature Film while Ross Kaufman’s Of medicine and miracles won for the best documentary film. For a full summary of the winners and jury reasoning, click here.