Hybrid Documentary ‘Like an Island’ Wins Top Award at Visions du Reel
variety.comLise Pedersen “Like an Island” (“L’îlot”), a hybrid documentary fable tinged with magical realism by Swiss director Tizian Büchi, has won the Grand Jury Prize at international documentary film festival Visions du Réel in Nyon, Switzerland.
The debut feature had its world premiere at the festival, bearing testimony to the event’s reputation as a launchpad for new talent and its tradition for hybrid fiction-reality films.
A total of seven first features are among the winners. It is the first time since 2013 that a Swiss film has picked up the festival’s top prize.“A small urban island becomes the metaphor of contemporary Europe and lends itself to a deep reflection about the absurdity of borders, rules, fences and barriers.
A brilliant observation, a surprising wondering, that rewrites the coordinates of geographical spaces in universal terms,” said the jury, composed of filmmaker Jessica Beshir, the winner of last year’s Grand Prix, Beatrice Fiorentino, general delegate of the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week, and Jovan Marjanović, director of the Sarajevo Film Festival.
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