Anke Blondé’s short film Dura Lex has won the European New Talent Award at the Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival (18-23 September) in Bristol, UK. After the recent awards in Palm Springs, this is the third international award forDura Lex. Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels also had reason to celebrate as their animated short, Oh Willy, grabbed the Animated Grand Prix at Encounters.
The jury praised Dura Lex for its ‘refreshing perspective on the theme of illegal immigration’. The director’s ‘sense of character and timing’ and the film’s ‘darkly comic undertones’ were also high on the jury’s list of reasons to award the film. The award is sponsored by the University of the West of England and comes with a grant of €1,000.
Dura Lex kicked off its festival career last year at the Leuven International Short Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Flemish Short. The film went on to win Best Live Action Short and second place for the Bridging the Borders Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Dura Lex deals with the subject of illegal immigration through the character of single mother Kristi (Wine Dierickx) who gets a visit from two police detectives who are looking for an illegal refugee. Kristi finds herself faced with a difficult decision.
Main roles are shared by Dierickx (pictured; Madonna’s Pig, With Friends Like These), Wim Willaert (22nd of May) and Nico Sturm (Pulsar, S&M Judge). Anke Blondé wrote the script together with Bert Van Dael and Sanne Nuyens. Dura Lex is a production of Dirk Impens for Menuet.
Oh Willy’s Animated Grand Prix in Bristol is the film's twelfth award and comes just a week after the film’s Cartoon d’Or in Toulouse. In the short stop-motion animation film, fiftysomething Willy returns to the naturist community where he spent his youth to visit his dying mother. When she dies shortly after he arrives, Willy is confronted with the choices he made in his life. The 17-minute film is produced by Ben Tesseur for Flemish stop-motion studio Beast Animation (A Town Called Panic).
Both Dura Lex and Oh Willy were made with the support of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF).