Stardust

Stardust – the second part of Nicolas Provost’s Plot Point trilogy – won the Vienna Short Film Award at the Vienna Independent Shorts film festival (VIS), the largest short film festival of Austria and the Centrope region. The title competed in the ‘Fiction & Documentary’ international programme.

The Vienna Short Film Award, worth €4,000, is presented by the City of Vienna and was awarded by a professional international jury consisting of Ruth Jarman, Danny Krausz and Thomas Neuhauser. Some 2,000 films from 90 countries were submitted to this competition; only 29 shorts from 18 countries were officially selected.

Disorient by Florence Aigner and Laurent Van Lancker received the Main Prize at VIDEOEX, the International Experimental Film & Video Festival in Zürich (21 – 29 May). Because We Are Visual by another helmers' duo, Olivia Rochette and Gerard-Jan Claes, was given an Honourable Mention by the Jury.

The International Jury, consisting of Maria Palacios Cruz (BE), Seppo Renvall (FIN) en Georges Salameh (GR) decided to share the Main Prize between two ‘brave’ films which ‘experiment with storytelling and with the absence of images. Both films share a sense of internal rhythm and pacing, as well as a strong correspondence between the chosen formal strategies and the subject matter that is being dealt with.’ Because We Are Visual also received praise from the jury for its ‘fragile beauty, ‘highly complex editing’ and ‘the two young filmmakers’ ambition.’

May promises to be a busy month for Flemish docs and shorts. Both the Docville International Documentary Festival in Leuven (29 April-7 May) and the Brussels Short Film Festival (28 April-8 May) are scheduling a strong selection of Flemish titles. With attention for Flemish productions on the rise internationally, indigenous fests are following course.

The seventh edition of documentary fest Docville is showcasing an ambitious programme, with yet to be released films, previews and one-off screenings. Among the 70 selected docs are a number of Flemish highlights such as Grande Hotel by Lotte Stoops and Waidmannsheil by Klaas Boelen, which were both selected for Hot Docs this year, as well as Peter Krüger’s creative documentary, Antwerp Central, which recently won the Grand Prix at the International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA).

At the International Short Film Festival in Mecal, Spain (8 – 17 April) Stardust by Nicolas Provost took the Award for Best Short Film in the Obliqua section. The visual artist and filmmaker is heading for a busy spring, from April till May his short Stardust is scheduled for no less than eight international festival presentations whilst another one of his films,Storyteller, is selected for the Videonale 13 in Bonn.

After its award in Mecal, Stardust is scheduled for the Jeonju International Film Festival in South Korea. At the same time the film is running in the Brussels Short Film Festival, immediately followed by the Curtocircuito International Short Film Festival in Santiago, Spain. In May the film will make a short stop in Oslo for the Norwegian Short Film Festival, before returning to Spain for the Cinema Jove IFF. The list closes with Vienna Independent Shorts and the Image Forum Festival, the latter fest tours a number of locations in Japan, starting in Tokyo.

Nicolas Provost's Stardust has been selected for the 57th edition of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (5-10 May). The film will screen in the Award Winners of Other Festivals section, confirming its strong fest track record. Parallel Worlds, by Harald Thys and Jos de Gruyter, is also scheduled for a market screening at Oberhausen.

After its world premiere in Venice last year, Stardust was selected for competition at both the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Fest and the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it won the Tiger Award for Best Short. The film is the second part of the Plot Point trilogy in which  Provost investigates the boundaries of fiction and reality by filming everyday life with a hidden camera and turning this reality into a fiction film by using cinematic and narrative codes from Hollywood film language.