03/05/2016 - The film is partly based on the memories of Chil Rajchman, a Polish Jew who survived this infamous concentration camp

Sérgio Tréfaut's Treblinka was named Best Film in the Local Competition at the IndieLisboa (©IndieLisboa)

Sérgio Tréfaut’s latest film Treblinka [+see also:
trailer
film profile] has won the local competition of the 2016 IndieLisboa, which came to an end on Sunday evening. This is the third time that the 51-year-old director has made a splash at the Lisbon showcase: he was previously awarded in 2004 for Lisboetas and in 2014 for Alentejo, Alentejo.

Tackling challenging genres and predictable categories, Treblinka started as a documentary project about a Holocaust survivor, 88-year old French female director Marceline Loridan-Ivens, but ended up mixing in texts from the memories of Chil Rajchman (1914 – 2004), a Polish Jewish who survived the infamous concentration camp of the title and whose memories were gathered in a book called Je Suis le Dernier Juif.

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Instead of recreating a linear narration of events, Tréfaut embarks on a journey in a train crossing Russia, the Ukraine and Poland. His camera follows an old woman played by Isabel Ruth and then jumps to Russian actor Kirill Kashlikov who recounts the horrors of the holocaust. More than a fiction based on real events, more than a documentary, Treblinka can be read as a poetic flashback to a past that is long gone, but left its ghosts behind. Tréfaut transforms those ghosts into naked men lost in the wagons of the train or reflected in its windows; often captured in blurry frames by the gifted DoP Joao Ribeiro (Letters from War [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Ivo M Ferreira
film profile]).

The main prize from IndieLisboa International Competition went to Chinese 4-hour film The Family by Shumin Liu.

The main short film winners were Nueva Vida by Kiro Russo and The Hunchback by visual artists and directors Gabriel Abrantes and Ben Rivers.

The list of main feature films awarded:

Feature Film Grand Prize City of Lisbon
The Family - Shumin Liu

Special Jury Award TVCine & Séries
Kate Plays Christine - Robert Greene

Ingreme Award for Best Portuguese Feature Film
Treblinka [+see also:
trailer
film profile] - Sérgio Tréfaut

RTP Award for Feature Film in the Silvestre Section
Eva no duerme [+see also:
trailer
film profile] - Pablo Agüero

FIPRESCI Award
Short Stay - Ted Fendt

Audience Jury Feature Film Award
Le Nouveau [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rudi Rosenberg
film profile] - Rudi Rosenberg