WoS Fabrique
The laureates from 2022
THE 2022 LAUREATES
The German laureate
Title: Silent War
Direction: Lilith Kugler
Production: Anna Maria Pürthner
Institution: Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF
Synopsis : In 8-year-old Darin‘s fantasy, the grumpy old neighbour is a mysterious witch. Torn between curiosity and fear, the shy Syrian girl keeps observing her secretly. One day, an old World War II bomb is found at a construction site nearby. For the defusing, all residents have to be evacuated. Because she doesn't want to leave without her, Darin dares to ring at her neighbour‘s door for the first time. Through this unexpected happening, the two lonely characters manage to overcome fear and difference, and connect in a magical, universal way.
The French laureate
Title: Au petit matin
Direction: Hong-Kai Liang
Production: Elsa Klughertz and Anne-Laure Berteau
Institution: La Fémis
Synopsis: Azor is a large dog abandoned in an apartment by his fleeing masters at the beginning of the war in Ukraine. With a poetic and idealistic soul, he tries to accept his involuntary imprisonment without passing judgement on anyone. Throughout the film, Azor speaks to us with an inner voice about everything and nothing. He prowls around his house, trying to understand what is going on outside, listening to the fighting. Gradually his food runs out and he begins to rave, in exhaustion and despair. The intrusion of two burglars who, according to Azor, look like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, suddenly sets him free, and Azor finds himself outside. Disillusioned and disappointed with himself, Azor walks through the streets and finds a dead soldier in a field bordering the neighbourhood. With a tender, brotherly word, Azor resurrects the soldier. However, his own fate is decided, and Azor disappears in an explosion on his way.
The Polish laureate
Title: Body
Direction: Milosz Sawicki
Production: Adrianna Redzia
Institution: Lodz Film School
Synopsis: Hundreds or even thousands of corpses of Russian soldiers are “overdue” on the battlefields in Ukraine. What is happening to them when they stop being useful?
Dima is a Ukrainian citizen fighting on the Russian separatist’s side. During a robbery in a Ukrainian village, he gets killed by his comrade.
Body tells the story of his last journey. His dead body travels through a Ukrainian village, military structures, comes back to its Russian comrades, but ends its journey in an anonymous mass grave. Every person who accompanies him on this journey builds up a collective portrait of a society caught up in the modern armed conflict in Ukraine.
The Spanish laureate
Title: The Idea of an Island
Direction: Carmen Pedrero
Production: Eva Bodas
Institution: ECAM
Synopsis: Logrosán, Cáceres. A mining town in Spain. June, 1938.
When the planes pass by, the sirens sound, and everyone runs to the mine. The children play at war without being fully aware of it.
The spinning tops fall to the ground; in the river they look at each other, their eyes restless.
A mother sings to life.
A girl lets herself be in the fields.
The Romanian laureate
Title: Cigarettes and Chocolate
Direction: Valentin Fogoros
Production: Bogdan Botescu
Institution: UNATC
Synopsis: Fane (31) is a petty criminal that drives a van full of aids from Romania into Ukraine upon the command of his brother, Eugen (37), an orthodox priest who profits from the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine to smuggle cigarettes back into Romania, under the cover of the humanitarian operation. The whole plan gets messed up when Fane discovers in the van an unexpected passenger - Oleg (10) - a Ukrainian boy that holds a note with a Swedish address where it has to be delivered. Fane must choose between listening to his manipulative brother or saving the boy.
