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SOLOTHURN 2021 Awards

Three women directors - Andrea Štaka, Stefanie Klemm and Gitta Gsell – triumph at Solothurn Film Days

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- Fiction films also won big at this year’s edition of the festival which awarded its Prix de Soleure to Mare, its new First Work prize to Of Fish and Men and its Audience Award to Beyto

Three women directors - Andrea Štaka, Stefanie Klemm and Gitta Gsell – triumph at Solothurn Film Days
Mare by Andrea Štaka

Andrea Štaka’s Mare [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andrea Staka
film profile
]
, recently nominated in no fewer than three categories at the Swiss Film Award: Best Fiction Film, Best Screenplay and Best Sound, has walked away with the prestigious Prix de Soleure at Solothurn Film Days. Presented in a world premiere at the 2020 Berlinale, the film unfortunately suffered considerable delays in its cinema release as a result of successive lockdowns. As such, the jury composed of Anne Bisang, Swiss director Markus Imhoof and writer Merel Kureyshi hopes that this prize will provide the film with another opportunity to be (re)discovered by the general public. Mare, Štaka’s third fiction film, focuses on the inner world of a woman torn between family responsibilities and her vital need for freedom. The jury sought to highlight the film’s ability “to transcend reality, becoming existential truth”.

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Meanwhile, Swiss director Anja Kofmel, the director of Geneva’s Cinémas du Grütli Paolo Moretti and French distributor Patrick Sibourd decided to bestow the new First Work award (consisting of 20,000 Swiss francs) upon Stefanie Klemm and her intriguing Of Fish and Men [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
. The film paints the portrait of two souls who are utterly lost following the loss of the person closest to them. It’s a sign of brilliant things to come for the director whose work was described by the jury as “convincing, owing to its sincerity and authenticity”. A Special Mention also went to Daniel Kemény’s poetic work sòne [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
.

Last but not least, the Solothurn Film Days’ Audience Award was won by Beyto [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gitta Gsell
film profile
]
, a movie directed by Gitta Gsell who already scooped an award in this very same category for Bödälä – Dance the Rhythm back in 2010. Beyto tells the story of a 19-year-old boy who falls in love with his swimming coach (played by Dimitri Stapfer, whose role earned him a nomination for the Swiss Film Award’s Best Performance in a Supporting Role accolade). His is a forbidden love which grows in the shadow of a family of Turkish origin viscerally attached to traditional values. Forced to marry his childhood friend, Beyto finds himself entangled in a three-way relationship from which he can no longer see an escape.

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(Translated from Italian)

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