Awards for 5th BOFF handed out
Winners of 5th edition to Finnsurf (Finland) and Hardest of the Alps (Italy). Best Slovenian film Cycling to the Sun, people’s choice is The Iron Hole.
Fifth Bovec Outdoor Film Festival ended with third night of screenings and award presentation.
Twentyone films were shown in Stergulc house and Bovec Cultural Center between December 28th and 30th. Sixteen of these were part of two competitive categories: Sports and action short (under 15 minutes) and long.
The jury, consisting of Austrian filmmaker Seppi Dabringer, photographers Janine and Dan Patitucci from U.S.A. via their Italian home, and Slovenian film expert Nina Peče, chose these two entries as category winners:
In Sport and action (short) the winner is Hardest of the Alps by Damiano Levati, Matteo Vettorel, Emilio Previtali / STORY.teller COLLECTIVE. Two climbers of younger generation, brothers Pou of Spain, roam the Alps from one to the next climbing legends and their ascents.
In Sport and action (long) the winner is Finnsurf by Aleksi Raij. The films consists of stories of five surfers who try to make their best with surf in Finland’s Baltic Sea. Surfing in Finland? That is exactly what the entertaining story is based on.
“It all started as fun when a friend of mine, a still photographer, got a new still camera which also happens to shoot high quality video,” says Matteo Vettorel who received the prize for Hardest of the Alps. “We received some support from a sponsor so we were able to afford helicopter shots. But in the end is still just fun of a couple of friends with photo camera.”
Organizers from Drča awarded the prize for best Slovenian film to Cycling to the Sun by Matej Tonejec on his 9 months long bicycle ride from Slovenia to Bangkok.
People’s choice is The Iron Hole by Slovak filmmaker Pavol Barabaš on an expedition into an extremely deep and dangerous gorge Trou de Fer on Reunion island. Barabaš already won the Nature and environment as well as jury’s “best of festival” award at BOFF two years ago with Carstesz siedma hora.
“We only had four films in competition in short category and sixteen long ones. We have been watching them over and over since we were judging by a number of different criteria. The jury members did not know each other yet when we were screening the films at home but in the end we all narrowed it down to same four films,” says juror Seppi Dabringer. Finnsurf hardly made any first places by any criteria on anyones list, but it was right up there with the best on every list.”
Festival director Jan Maček said: “We are very satisfied with the new location in Stergulc house, in contributed to festival’s success. We are very happy with increase in audience, especially because so many people came to Bovec from elsewhere mainly to see the films. We have seen many good films.”
The second Snow scupltures festival almost entirely moved from Bovec to higher and colder Kanin due to warm weather. The work of team Glebov from Russa has been chosen as best of festival.
