God Will Not Help by Hana Jušić takes home Special Mention at 30th Sofia IFF
The Balkan Competition Jury at the Sofia International Film Festival awards a Special Mention to God Will Not Help, directed by Hana Jušić and produced by Kinorama, at the gala awards ceremony held on 21 March in Sofia.
The jury, consisting of John Paul Davidson (director, producer, UK), Andrei Pakhov (film critic, Ukraine) and Vanya Rainova (screenwriter, producer, Bulgaria), delivered the following jury statement:
“We admired its cinematic approach, a non-verbal way of conveying complex themes of deceit and female emancipation.”
The same jury awarded the main prize in the Balkan Competition to the feature Mother directed by Teona Strugar Mitevska.
At the gala closing ceremony, on behalf of the director, the award was accepted by the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Maja Vukić.
Find out more about the award-winning titles at this link.
After screening at the Sofia International Film Festival on 17 and 18 March, God Will Not Help darts off to Italy to appear in the international competition at the Bari International Film & TV Festival, and then travels to Brazil for the Panorama Internacional Coisa de Cinema festival, as well as to the United States (Minneapolis) for the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival held in April.
Hana Jušić’s sophomore feature had its world premiere at the 78th Locarno Film Festival, where lead actresses Manuela Martelli and Ana Marija Veselčić won the Pardo Award for Best Acting in Concorso Internazionale, the main international competition programme. The film subsequently had its regional premiere at the Sarajevo Film Festival, taking home the Special Award for Promoting Gender Equality.
With Kinorama as the lead producer, God Will Not Help is a co-production between companies Nightswim (Italy), Micro Film (Romania), Horsefly Films (Greece), Maneki Films (France), Perfo Production (Slovenia) and ERT S.A. (Greece). The producer is Ankica Jurić Tilić, with co-producers Ada Solomon, Diana Caravia, Ines Vasiljević, Stefano Sardo, Yorgos Tsourgiannis, Didar Domehri, Aleš Pavlin and Andrej Štritof.
The same programme also featured three minority Croatian coproductions: Otter by Srđan Vuletić (Antitalent), Yugo Florida by Vladimir Tagić (Eclectica) and How Come It’s All Green Out Here? by Nikola Ležaić (Nukleus Film). In addition, in collaboration with the Zagreb Film Festival, SIFF screened a block of Croatian shorts (from the 22nd ZFF Checkers section).
Cover photographs: scenes from God Will Not Help; Maja Vukić (Sofia IFF); Hana Jušić (Kinorama; Sofia IFF)