Due to sanitary conditions, the 24th edition of PriMed – le Festival de la Méditerranée en images – could not take place in Marseille. Nevertheless, thanks to the generosity of the selected directors, and to CMCA will, the 2020 edition took place online.
This new format was a great success. Nearly 100 000 internet users viewed the film extracts posted on social networks. More than 12 000 watched the 23 documentaries selected for this edition.
The 2020 festival started like usual with the Audience Award. From Saturday 28th November at noon to Monday 30th November at noon, 5 short films were accessible online. Internet users were able to watch them and vote for their favourite. Then, from Sunday 29th November to Friday 4th December, the medium and feature-length films selected in the different PriMed categories were available on the website www.primed.tv. Finally, on Saturday 5th December, the winning documentaries were shown once again.
The Awards Ceremony also took place virtually. The jury members and partners gave the prizes to the winning directors by videoconference. The directors, producers, jury members and partners were able to exchange views despite the distance. The Awards Ceremony was also broadcasted live on Facebook.
Despite the difficulties and special conditions, the Mediterranean Young People Award was once again able to take place. Thanks to the commitment of teachers from around the Mediterranean, more than 2 000 students were able to work on the documentary films chosen for them. Even if discussions could not be organised between the different schools, the debates took place in the classrooms. This is reflected in the videos shot in Algeria, Italy, and Tunisia.
The two mentions of “Moi, Citoyen méditerranéen” competition were awarded. The South Mediterranean Mention, sponsored by CFI, was won by Asma Berrah from International High School Alexandre Dumas (Algiers, Algeria). The North Mediterranean Mention was won by to Laura Nucera from Tommaso Campanella High School (Reggio Calabria, Italy).
MEDITERRANEAN ISSUES Award – Sponsored by France Télévisions
MÈRES (Mothers), by Myriam BAKIR
62 minutes, 2020
Production : Sedna Films (France), Abel Aflam (Morocco)
in coproduction with TV 2M (Morocco), Lyon Capitale TV (France), Ostinato Production (France)
In Morocco, single mothers can be sent to prison under article 490 of the penal code. Society treats them as outcasts. To protect them, Mahjouba Edbouche created the association Oum El Banine (mother of children) which welcomes pregnant unmarried women.
The director takes us through their daily lives in this shelter and shows us their journey, from their arrival here to the birth of a child, And sometimes reconciliation with their family.
Myriam BAKIR was born in Paris of Moroccan parents. She studied at the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français in Paris, followed by a training course in photography in the United States. Then came professional television experience in the West Indies. She has directed three short films.
“Samia” with Neza Rahil was broadcast on Canal Plus. It has also won the Audience Award at the Meknes Rencontres Cinématographiques and Best Actress Award at the Casablanca National Festival.
In 2011, her first feature “Agadir-Bombay” with Noufissa Benchehida, won the Best Actress Award at the Tangier National Film Festival. In this film about prostitution in Morocco, the director sees the issue from the woman’s point of view. Today her work is used as evidence with associations defending the rights of women and children. With the support of the Moroccan Ministry of National Education, it is regularly shown in schools.
“Mères” is Myriam Bakir’s first documentary, set in the real world, following Mahjouba Edbouche, a woman committed to single mothers in Morocco. The film tackles the problem head-on: these women’s fate and the law which condemns them.
MEDITERRANEAN MEMORY Award – Sponsored by INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel)
THE WEAVERS, by Dimitris KOUTSIABASAKOS
52 minutes, 2020
Production : Domaine Gerovassiliou (Greece)
In 1963 IM (Individuell Människohjlälp) a Swedish charity, set up a weaving centre in Vlasti, a mountainous village in Greece.
For 25 years this intercultural initiative has supported the women of a village suffering from wars, poverty and neglect.
“The Weavers” offers a bittersweet look at the development of rural Greece.
Dimitris KOUTSIABASAKOS was born in 1967. He studied film and television direction in Moscow at the VGIK (Gerasimov University of Cinematography).
He made a number of documentaries, series, shorts and features.
Among his latest films: “The Grocer” (2013, 81 and 52 minutes – Broadcaster’s Award France 3 Corse ViaStella at the 2015 PriMed – le Festival de la Méditerranée en images), “Becoming an actor” (2014, 61 minutes), “Silent Witness” (2016, 72 minutes) and “Yannis Kastritsis: the man and his shadow” (2017, 72 minutes).
FIRST FILM Award – Sponsored by RAI (Radio Télévision Italienne)
ONE MORE JUMP, by Emanuele GEROSA
83 minutes, 2019
Production : GraffitiDoc (Italy), Amka Films Productions (Swiss), ITAR Productions (Lebanon), Rai Cinema (Italy)
Abdallah, a parkour professional athlete, managed to escape from Gaza.
His friend Jehad, however, still lives there. He trains young athletes for whom sport remains the only thing tinged with hope in the midst of the conflict. Should you leave to fulfil your dreams, or stay to fight for your country?
A question which hangs over this moving story about personal growth.
Emanuele GEROSA was born in 1975 in Rovereto, Italy. He studied contemporary history at the University of Bologna, Italy, before moving to Spain where he worked as a director and writer of documentaries, TV series and commercials. Back in his own country, in Milan, he decided to specialise in making documentaries. In 2015 he directed his first feature-length documentary, “Between Sisters”. It has been presented in numerous international festivals and has received several awards in Italy, Egypt, Spain and France.
ART, HERITAGE AND CULTURES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN Award
QUEEN LEAR, by Pelin ESMER
84 minutes, 2019
Production : Sinefilm (Turkey)
A travelling theatre group of Turkish peasant women performs along the dusty and treacherous roads winding up to the most remote mountain villages, where even drinking water is difficult to find. They transform Shakespeare’s “King Lear” into “Queen Lear”.
Pelin ESMER is a Turkish film-maker based in Istanbul. Having studied sociology, she turned to films. While working as an assistant director, she started making her own films. After her first documentary “The Collector”, she created her own company Sinefilm and wrote, directed and produced: “The Play” (“Oyun”received an award at the 2006 PriMed – le Festival de la Méditerranée en images), “10 to 11”, “Watchtower” and “Something Useful”. Her films have been shown at several festivals around the world, notably in San Sebastian, Toronto, Rotterdam, Tribeca, Tallinn, Gothenburg, winning several awards.
MEDITERRANEAN YOUNG’S PEOPLE Award
ONE MORE JUMP, by Emanuele GEROSA
Find the resume above.
SHORT MEDITERRANEAN (Audience Award)
DOUMA UNDERGROUND, by Tim ALSIOFI
11 minutes, 2019
Production : Bidayyat for Audiovisual Arts (Lebanon)
While home-made bombs were raining on Ghouta, civilians took refuge in their basements. I was one of them. Armed with my camera, I tried to film what I could not express in words.
Born in Douma in the Damascus countryside in 1994, Tim ALSIOFI studied sound and music. He was unable to complete his studies due to the blockade imposed on the town of Douma and Eastern Ghouta. During this period, he worked as a director and sound engineer at the Russel Studio in Douma (2014-2018). In 2018 he was forced into exile. He also works as a presenter and reporter for several local and international radio stations. After his early days photographing his local region in 2013, he joined others sending images from the heart of Eastern Ghouta to numerous press agencies. He is part of the team of Sam Lenses and Russel Studio, and is a founding member of the charity Humanity in Syria.
Tim has also worked as a videographer and cinematographer for several short and feature-length documentaries. “Still Recording” is one of his latest projects (2018, winner of five awards at Critics’ Week in Venice). He photographed and directed the short films “Sons of War” and “The Flute and the Cemetery” for Orient TV.
SPECIAL MENTION ASBU
CHAINED – AGORÁ II, by Yorgos AVGEROPOULOS
92 minutes, 2020
Production : SmallPlanet Productions (Greece)
in coproduction with Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) (Germany),
with the collaboration of Arte (Germany, France)
The Covid-19 pandemic is the third consecutive crisis on the European continent, after the European debt crisis and the refugee emergency. For five years, journalist Yorgos Avgeropoulos has followed leading figures of the Greek government as they confronted the EU’s demands for ever greater austerity, while in the country right-wing extremism exploded and refugees arrived in droves round the coasts. A virus had managed to expose not only the weaknesses of neoliberalism – a creed built on faith in free markets and deregulation – but also the failure of European values.
Yorgos AVGEROPOULOS was born in Athens in 1971. He is a journalist and documentary film-maker. He has worked for Greek TV channels. He was correspondent during the conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Palestine. In 2000 he created the series “Exandas”, with more than 100 documentaries which were broadcast on Greek public television and all over the world. Among his most recent films: “Jusqu’à la dernière goutte. La guerre secrète de l’eau en Europe” (2017), “Agora” (2015, selected for 2015 PriMed – le Festival de la Méditerranée en images), “The Lost Signal of Democracy” (2014, winner of the Reportage Award at 2014 PriMed – – le Festival de la Méditerranée en images), “People and Numbers” (2013), “El Sistema – Saving Lives” (2013), “GoldenTimes: Cassandra’s Treasure” (2012), “Black Vilva” (2012), “Charity, Diplomacy and Business” (2012), “The MidasEffect” (2011) and “Stealing from the Poor” (2011).
Prix “Moi, citoyen Méditerranéen” (“I’m A Mediterranean Citizen” Award)
Mention SOUTH MEDITERRANEAN – sponsored by CFI (Canal France International) :
RECYCL’ART, by Asma BERRAH, from the International High school Alexandre Dumas, Algiers (Algeria)
Mention NORD MEDITERRANEAN :
LE PROCESSUS, by Laura NUCERA, from the Tommaso Campanella High school, Reggio de Calabre (Italy)
BROADCASTING AWARDS
2M (Morocco) :
ONE MORE JUMP, by Emanuele GEROSA
Find the resume above.
France 3 Corse ViaStella :
LA PASSION D’ANNA MAGNANI (The Passion of Anna Magnani), by Enrico CERASUOLO
60 minutes, 2019
Production : Les Films du Poisson (France), Zenit Arti Audiovisive (Italy), Arte (France) in collaboration with Rai Com (Italy), in association with Istituto Luce Cinecittà (Italy)
Who can forget Anna Magnani’s face in “Rome, Open City”, running desperately to prevent her husband’s arrest? Magnificent and ordinary, comical and tragic, this immense actress, emblem of neorealism, revolutionized how women are represented. As volcanic in life as she was on screen, she impressed Hollywood with the power of her acting, becoming the first Italian to win an Oscar. Using material from original and private archives, particularly from the collections of the Istituto Luce and RAI, and with extracts from television shows, interviews with the biggest names of the time, and of course clips from remarkable films, the documentary plunges us into the golden age of Italian cinema. And traces the career of an exceptional actress who has marked cinema history.
Enrico CERASUOLO was born in Venice, in 1968. He graduated in Political Science and Contemporary History and has been chair of Zenit Arti Audiovisive since the company’s creation in 1992. Writer and director of documentary films, he has written and directed films which have been broadcast on several television channels in different countries and won awards at Italian and European festivals. His principal films are: “Last Call” (2013 52 / 90 minutes, ZDF ARTE, Zenit, Skoftland); “De Garibaldi à Berlusconi” (2011, 118 minutes, ARTE France, Les Films d’Ici, Zenit); “La Face cachée de la Peur” (2008, 52 minutes, ARTE France, Les Films d’Ici, Zenit).
RAI (Italie) :
UNE CARAVANE EN HIVER (A Caravan In The Winter), by Mehdi AHOUDIG
52 minutes, 2020
Production : Squaw (France), France Télévisions (France)
In a small town in southern Morocco retired people on modest pensions settle every winter, sheltered within the walls of a campsite.
For the first time they can relax, enjoy life and think of escaping from a France they do not understand. Between their fantasy of Morocco and their imagined Moroccan, they take their chances. A few metres from the campsite a young Moroccan worker escapes from his family background by studying classical music. In a setting reminiscent of a town in a Western, this little group get to know each other, exchanging their fears and hopes.
Mehdi AHOUDIG has made many radio documentaries for Arte Radio: for “Qui a connu Lolita?” in 2010 he received the Prix Europa for Best Radio Documentary in Berlin and in 2015 with “Poudreuse dans la Meuse”, he won again the Prix Europa for Best Radio Documentary in Berlin. That programme also won the Prix Grandes Ondes in Brest in 2016.
He has co-directed two documentary films: “La parade” with Samuel Bollendorf (Étoile de la SCAM) and “On ira à Neuilly inch’allah” avec Anna Salzberg (Special Mention at the Clermont-Ferrand Festival Traces de Vies).
Find all the information on PriMed 2020 here
