The first 13th Parish Festival Award winners 2019
The ‘Pomme D’Or’ Award for Best International Short Film’
Jury members: Martin Greene, Martha MacDonald and Ros Byrne-Shore
Winner: Anthony, The Invisible One (Maya Kosa)
Maya Kosa’s multi-dimensional short film inverts, transforms and challenges ways of seeing. With a patience which gradually allowed us in to an intimate partnership where senses are the last thing you need to experience something deeply. Subtle but intensely moving, this slow-burn film ambitiously uses a visual form to interrogate visuality itself to such an extent that when we are finally shown the triptych at its heart – merely looking at it feels insufficient. Managing to take us on this journey to excavate these complex layers of beauty, artfulness and sensation within such a short space of time is an incredible accomplishment well-deserving of this inaugural award.
Highly commended: Inhale – part of the ‘Irish Ways’ documentary collection curated by Mick Hannigan from IndieCork
Sean Mullan’s film brings its subject’s tragic experiences into sharp focus with an
unexpected delicacy difficult to achieve when documenting the devastation of grief. It was this soft touch paralleled with the subject’s raw resilience and the brutality of the landscape he isolated himself in that brought us heartbreakingly close to his vulnerability after losing his wife and daughter.
Highly commended: Between the Shadows (Mónica Santos, Alice Guimarães)
This wry film-noir with its pacy tale of romance, intrigue and mystery leaves quite an impression. Lured in by the rhythm of the expert stop-motion animation and exuberant soundtrack, we felt its imaginative style and self-aware sense of humour well worthy of our commendation.