01/04/2022 - The film by Hungarian directors Igor and Ivan Buharov has won the Sauvage Award for Best Fiction Film, while Eva Stefani's Days and Nights of Demetra K. was named Best Documentary

Director Igor Buharov (real name Kornél Szilágyi) with his Sauvage Award

Concluding two weeks of screenings in a dozen locations in Paris and its suburbs, the 17^th edition of the "L'Europe autour de l'Europe" festival has revealed its list of winners. In the section dedicated to recent European feature films new to France, the Sauvage Award for Best Fiction Film was given by the jury to Land of Warm Waters from Hungarian directors Igor and Ivan Buharov (the pseudonyms of Kornél Szilágyi and Nándor Hevesi).

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Since 1995, the Hungarian duo has been making independent films on the border between fine arts and cinema, experimental film and classical narration, and shooting essentially on Super 8. In Land of Warm Waters, fantastical characters evolve in a universe that brings together dreams and reality,  where each is engaged in their own metaphysical self-reflection and goes so far as to use particular methods to help them break free from a hierarchical value system and liberate them from organisational oppression.

“We’ve always thought of cinema as a type of treatment, where the subconscious and the intelligence of the viewers must develop a sense, a story,” said the directors in an interview given to La Repubblica some time ago. “We are like the shamans that accompany them on a ayahuasca trip. And we believe that we must rebel against linearity in film writing. Anyone can make a TV series, we are cultivating a kind of diversity that is very out of fashion in Hungary.”

Starring, among others, Domokos Szabo, Orsolya Török-Illyés, Szabolcs Hajdu, Ibolya Péva, Mári Bagdiné Kovács and Illés Nyitrai, Land of Warm Waters (unveiled last year at FID Marseille) is a co-production between Hungary, Slovakia, Germany and Norway via Álomvadász, Pioneer Pictures, KMH Film, Korda Filmstúdió, Umbrella Kreatív Műhely, Alphaville Virtual Studios, Laokoon Film, MPhilms, Film Force Team and Volte.

Here is the full list of winners:

Sauvage Award
Land of Warm Waters - Igor and Ivan Buharov (Hungary/Slovakia/Germany/Norway)

Special Mention
As Far as I Can Walk [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stefan Arsenijević
film profile] - Stefan Arsenijević (Serbia/France/Luxembourg/Bulgaria/Lithuania)

Special Mention
Adieu Vénus - Martin Ziegler (France/Germany)

Luna Award
As Far as I Can Walk - Stefan Arsenijević

Présent award for Best Documentary
Days and Nights of Demetra K. - Eva Stefani (Greece)

Special Mention
Waters of Pastaza [+see also:
trailer
film profile] - Inês T. Alves (Portugal)

Special Mention
A.I. at War - Florent Marcie (France)

Sauvage Corto Award
Leap Year - Alina Gudovskaya (Russia)

Special Mention
Land of Glory - Borbála Nagy (Hungary)

(Translated from French)