Two female gazes, stretching from Switzerland to Argentina, have won the Pardi 2020 awards – each worth 70,000 Swiss francs – for productions halted by the COVID-19 crisis. The international jury for The Films After Tomorrow – made up of Nadav Lapid, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese and Kelly Reichardt – picked out Chocobar, by acclaimed Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel, a political documentary that takes its cue from the murder in 2009 of land rights activist Javier Chocobar to investigate aspects of colonization and native culture. The jury of the Swiss selection, composed of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Alina Marazzi and Matías Piñeiro, awarded another female director, Marí Alessandrini, with Zahorí, a Swiss production also set in Argentina, where an unlikely friendship grows on the Patagonian Steppe between a thirteen-year-old girl of Ticino origin and an old Mapuche man.
In the international selection the Campari Award, a special jury prize worth 50,000 Swiss francs, went to the film Selvajaria (Savagery) by Miguel Gomes, freely adapted from the novel Rebellion in the Backlands by Euclides da Cunha, an account of the late 19th century military campaign of the newly-formed Brazilian Republic against the tiny settlement of Canudos. The Swatch Award for the most innovative project (30,000 Swiss francs) was won by De Humani Corporis Fabrica (The Fabric of the Human Body) by Verena Paravel and Lucien-Castaing Taylor, a political and philosophical documentary on the delicate issues of bioethics raised by new technologies in medicine. Among the projects in the Swiss selection, the SRG SSR Award, consisting in a TV advertising campaign worth 100,000 Swiss francs, was assigned to LUX, a documentary about the Swiss army by young filmmakers Raphaël Dubach and Mateo Ybarra.
The Palmarès
The Films After Tomorrow – International selection
The jury for the international selection, made up of Nadav Lapid, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese and Kelly Reichardt, awarded the following prizes:
- Pardo 2020: for the production of the film, to the best international project (70,000 Swiss francs)
CHOCOBAR
by Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/USA/Denmark/Mexico
- Campari Award: special jury prize (50,000 Swiss francs)
SELVAJARIA (Savagery)
by Miguel Gomes, Portugal/France/Brazil/Chine/Greece
- Swatch Award: for the most innovative project (30,000 Swiss francs) and the opportunity to design a limited-edition Swatch which will be the official watch of Locarno74
DE HUMANI CORPORIS FABRICA (The Fabric of the Human Body)
by Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor
The Films After Tomorrow – Swiss selection
The jury for the Swiss selection, made up of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Alina Marazzi and Matías Piñeiro, awarded the following prizes:
- Pardo 2020: for the production of the film, to the best Swiss project (70,000 Swiss francs)
ZAHORÍ
by Marí Alessandrini, Switzerland/Argentina/Chile/France
- SRG SSR Award: promotional television campaign worth 100,000 Swiss francs for a Swiss project, guaranteeing publicity on national networks to accompany theatrical release in Switzerland
LUX
by Raphaël Dubach and Mateo Ybarra, Switzerland
Palmarès Call
Watch the Palmarès Call, the Artistic Director's chats with the five winners of The Films After Tomorrow