Senegalese Debut ‘Banel & Adama,’ Soda Jerk’s ‘Hello Dankness’ Top Award Winners at Melbourne Film Festival
variety.comGuy Lodge Film Critic On the final weekend of a bustling 18-day event, the in-person edition of this year’s Melbourne Film Festival has drawn to a close with an awards ceremony that saw a whopping $300,000 AUD (over $191,000 USD) in prize money handed out across six categories.
The biggest individual award of $140,000 AUD (nearly $90,000 USD) was presented to the winner of the fest’s international Bright Horizons competition: “Banel & Adama,” an arresting debut feature by Franco-Senegalese filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy.
It’s a notable coup for a small-scale rural love story that turned heads — but won no prizes — when it premiered in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May, and is still seeking distribution in the U.S.
and other major territories. Reviewing the film out of Cannes, Variety critic Jessica Kiang commended the “subtly seductive power” of a “striking debut [that] revolves with graceful poetry around the inner experiences of a curious, unknowable woman.” Its win came against formidable competition in the Bright Horizons selection, including such buzzy titles as Molly Manning Walker’s Cannes Un Certain Regard winner “How to Have Sex” and Phạm Thiên Ân’s haunting debut “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell” — which, back on the Croisette, beat “Banel & Adama” to the Camera d’Or prize.
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