2018 Award Winners

The 4th Atlantic International Film Festival, Barranquilla, Colombia, from September 12-15, 2018,  named winners across multiple categories . The selection included 44 films representing 27 nations chosen from over 1,100 entries from 82 nations.

The winners are as follows:

BEST FEATURE FILM: NOTES FROM THE NEW WORLD. VITALY SUMIN. UNITED STATES

Los Angeles, USA… In the process of preparing for the leading role in a play based on Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground, a young actor is drawn into a world of intrigue, romance, and murder.

 

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: NEW LIFE. VEYSI ALTAY. TURKEY

New Life, with the slogan » Woman is life. Life is resistance and resistance is Kobanê», depicts the daily life of women guerillas, Elif Kobanê (18), Vîyan Peyman and Arjîn, joining in the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) in their battle against ISIS. The documentary relates the ISIS assault of 15 September 2014 and the five-month resistance by the YPJ and People’s Defense Units (YPG) through the lens of three women fighters.

 

BEST FICTION SHORT FILM: WINTRY SPRING. MOHAMED KAMEL. EGYPT

Nour, is a schoolgirl that lives alone with her father, goes through a crisis on the arrival of her puberty and cannot tell her dad and the father didn’t understand the changes that occurred in her life, which results in tension between them.

 

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM: ALFAIÃO. ANDRÉ ALMEIDA RODRIGUES. PORTUGAL

In the field painted white with frost, the birds sing as they deceive the hunter who gets warm with the first rays of the sun. In the fireplace, the wood creaks in the fire and heats up the old man who is napping in the company of his cat. We are in the village, where there is always too much heat despite the cold and the rain from time to time. This village is Alfaião.

 

BEST SHORT FILM ANIMATION: CUERDAS. PEDRO SOLIS GARCIA. SPAIN

Maria’s routine at school is altered by the arrival of a very special child. Soon they become close friends.

BEST EXPERIMENTAL SHORT FILM: WHISTLE. NADIA TORRES. COLOMBIA

Can animals understand our sounds? Can we communicate with them?

 

BEST SHORT FILM THEME: CHILDHOOD: SCHOOLYARD BLUES. MARIA ERIKSSON-HECHT. SWEDEN 

It’s John’s first day at school. Unexpectedly his eleven-year-old big brother Mika shows up to follow him to assembly. But Mika has plans other than just taking John to school. Mika see it as his mission to teach John the hard facts of the world, starting with the merciless demands of the schoolyard.