20/10/2022 - The festival, dedicated to promoting the craft of filmmaking and the art of cinema, has handed out its awards and welcomed a clutch of acclaimed guests to Oslo

Zaynê Akyol, director of Rojek, cinematographer Arshia Shakiba with his award, James Ellis Deakins and Sir Roger Deakins after the awards ceremony

The second Mirage Film Festival – Art of the Real wrapped on 16 October, marking it out as a successful edition, as the number of audience members in attendance, as well as the number of national and international guests, increased substantially over previous years. This was also the first year of Mirage Professionals, the industry programme of the gathering, dedicated to promoting the craft of the filmmaking process and the professionals behind the collaborative art of cinema. Mirage has become a hub for editors, cinematographers, directors and sound designers, allowing them to meet and discuss their work for four consecutive days.

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The Mirage awards ceremony took place at the former National Library in Oslo, and for the Mirage Awards for Directing, Editing, Cinematography and Sound Design, four films were first nominated and each ultimately awarded by a one-person jury.

Oscar-nominated screenwriter and director Eskil Vogt gave a Special Mention to Mother Lode [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Matteo Tortone
film profile] by Matteo Tortone before bestowing the Mirage Award for Directing upon Payal Kapadia for her film A Night of Knowing Nothing [+see also:
film review
interview: Payal Kapadia
film profile]. In his statement, Vogt underlined: “I was deeply impressed by how Kapadia radically weaves different kinds of material into a poetic, fluid and hard-hitting whole. Kapadia reports on an urgent contemporary story, but seamlessly blends dreams and intimate fiction into her narrative, and isn’t even afraid to constantly remind us that we are watching a film. Her movie is in dialogue with film history, silent movies, the French New Wave, and especially Chris Marker; but at the same time, she is showing documentary images that are radically modern – like the streams of images we share on social media in an attempt to wake people up: look at this! Be upset! This is happening now.”

The film also picked up the Mirage Editing Award for Ranabir Das, who edited, shot and produced it. Acclaimed editor Anne Fabini stated: “Is this film a call to document everything we live through? Not only to document, but also to process it all? It is, for sure, a film that relies on and expertly uses the transformative power of editing. The materials used not only bear witness to events; they also wear the marks of intense processing: little doodles that seem scratched into the physical filmstrip, handwritten lines, title cards, CCTV footage, dances and dreams, still compositions, shaky videos from mobile phones, 16mm archive footage, Super 8mm found footage, all unified into high-contrast black and white that looks like a cinematographic message from the early days of cinema. This is told with the urgency and emotion of a young, wounded heart.”

Heiki Kossi bestowed the Sound Design Award upon the film Inner Lines [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd, who also created the intricate sound design, together with Julia Lusinian, Jean-Luc Fichefet and Alain Cabaux. In his statement, Kossi mentioned, “The organic soundscape concentrates both on the story and the textures of the image, and the film is also a good example of how sound can be such a strong and creative storytelling element.”

Finally, Sir Roger Deakins handed out the Mirage Cinematography Award to Rojek, directed by Zaynê Akyol. According to Deakins, the film shows, among other things, the incredible power and emotions of the human face, thanks to the amazing photography. The award was bestowed upon cinematographers Nicolas Canniccioni and Arshia Shakiba, and it was accepted by the latter during the ceremony. In his emotional speech, Shakiba also paid tribute to all of the brave Kurdish and Iranian women.

Here is a list of the awards handed out at the second Mirage Film Festival:

Mirage Directing Award
Payal Kapadia - A Night of Knowing Nothing [+see also:
film review
interview: Payal Kapadia
film profile] (India/France)
Special Mention
Matteo Tortone - Mother Lode [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Matteo Tortone
film profile] (France/Italy/Switzerland)

Mirage Editing Award
Ranabir Das - A Night of Knowing Nothing

Mirage Sound Design Award
Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd, Julia Lusinian, Jean-Luc Fichefet, Alain Cabaux - Inner Lines [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (France/Belgium)

Mirage Cinematography Award
Nicolas Canniccioni, Arshia Shakiba - Rojek (Canada)