Lithuanian teen drama “Toxic” is a huge success at the Locarno Film Festival

Lithuanian cinema, which is usually not particularly well represented at international film festivals, was the big topic at this year's Locarno Film Festival awards ceremony: two films from the Baltic state won several main prizes.

Toxic, a promising debut from screenwriter and director Saulė Bliuvaitė, not only won the Golden Leopard for Best Film in the festival's main international competition – from a jury chaired by Austrian writer Jessica Hausner – but also, in an unusual double, the top prize in the separately juried First Feature Film Competition. Bliuvaitė's compatriot Laurynas Bareiša, meanwhile, won the Best Director award in the international competition for his second feature, Drowning Dry, while the ensemble cast of the same film also shared one of the jury's gender-neutral acting awards.

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Toxic is a brutal study of alliances and rivalries between teenagers attending a modeling school in a small Lithuanian town. The film stood out in the competition for its youthfulness and severity – as it tackles issues such as financial and sexual exploitation as well as harmful body image. diversityThe positive review described the film as “sobering, but not without a touch of tenderness and humor as female friendship takes root in a hopeless place,” adding that its “alternation between cool composure and kinetic movement is about as good as [the protagonist’s] fluctuating self-esteem.”

Before presenting the award to Bareiša, Hausner praised the film for its “artistic visual style, its very strong actors and its truly original and unusual narrative structure. [leading to] an understanding of the harshness and beauty of being different – you could even say of being a freak.” Accepting the award, the young filmmaker referred to her “humble beginnings” and continued: “I want to use this platform to acknowledge this privilege that we now have, that we can celebrate cinema and make films… in many parts of the world, people do not have the privilege of feeling safe, they have to fight to simply exist.”

In addition to the Golden Leopard and the award for the first feature film – in which it relegated the entry “Green Line” by French director Sylvie Ballyot, which was also in the international competition, to second place – “Toxic” also won the Ecumenical Jury Prize.

“Drowning Dry,” a structurally complex, narratively splintered portrait of two sisters whose families are torn apart by tragedy, marked a confident step forward for Lithuanian cinematographer and director Bareiša, whose debut “Pilgrims” triumphed in Venice’s Horizons competition in 2021. Apparently the jury – which also included actors Tim Blake Nelson and Luca Marinelli, producer Diana Elbaum and recent Cannes-winning filmmaker Payal Kapadia – had trouble settling on a single candidate for the acting award: not only did they award it jointly to the four outstanding leads of “Drowning Dry”, Gelminė Glemžaitė, Agnė Kaktaitė, Giedrius Kiela and Paulius Markevičius, but the quartet also shared the prize with South Korean star Kim Minhee for her droll, tender portrayal of a reclusive art teacher in prolific director Hong Sangsoo’s “By the Stream”.

The Special Jury Prize – effectively second place after the Golden Leopard – went to Iraqi-born, Austria-based director Kurdwin Ayub for her second feature film, “Moon,” an enigmatic thriller about a martial artist who is sent to train three Jordanian sisters under veiled circumstances. Ayub, whose debut, “Sonne,” won her the Best First Feature award at the 2022 Berlinale, thanked her producer, veteran Austrian auteur Ulrich Seidl, before pointing to the cat-shaped trophy: “My cats will love this award!” In addition to the independent jury awards, Ayub also received the Europe Cinemas Label Award and a special mention from the Ecumenical Jury.

Special jury mentions went to Spanish director Mar Coll for her haunting psychodrama “Salve Maria” and to Chinese documentary filmmaker Wang Bing for his nearly four-hour-long film “Youth (Hard Times),” the second part of his epic trilogy about the lives and struggles of textile workers in the city of Huzhou. (The third part, “Youth (Homecoming),” will premiere in competition in Venice next month.)

In the festival's second competition, contemporary filmmakers, Georgian director Tato Kotetishvili won the top prize for his debut feature “Holy Electricity,” a vividly quirky tale about two Tbilisi youths trying to swindle pious locals with fake neon crosses, while filmmakers Maha Haj (for “Upshot”), Mickey Lai (for “Washhh”) and Samuel Patthey (for “Sans Voix”) each triumphed in their own section of the festival's extensive Pardi di Domani short film competition. The festival's audience award, the UBS Prix du Public, will be presented separately tonight in the Piazza Grande, Locarno's central outdoor venue, before the screening of the closing film, actress-director Laetitia Dosch's offbeat Cannes-premiered legal farce “Dog on Trial.”

In his statement on the awards, Giona A. Nazzaro, Locarno's artistic director, described them as emblematic of the festival's reputation for promoting and crowning new talent: “Creativity and hope for a better future were the elements that ran through all sections. Cinema is a driving force and Locarno is a flagship for this. We are really proud of this edition and grateful for the tremendous team effort behind this success. The victory of newcomer Saulė Bliuvaitė confirms the Locarno Film Festival's ability to identify the most innovative talent in the industry.”

Nazzaro also pointed to the numerous awards given to female filmmakers at today's ceremony, including Bliuvaitė, Mond, Ballyot and Swiss-Cape Verdean director Denise Fernandes, who won the award for best new director in the contemporary filmmaking category for her debut film “Hanami”. “Locarno77 has reaffirmed even more the centrality of women's voices in contemporary cinema,” he concluded.

Full list of winners below:

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Golden Leopard for Best Film: “Poisonous”, Saulė Bliuvaitė
Special Jury Prize: “Moon”, Kurdwin Ayub
Best Director: Laurynas Bareiša, “Drowning Dry”
Best performance: (ex aequo) Gelminė Glemžaitė, Agnė Kaktaitė, Giedrius Kiela and Paulius Markevičius, “Drowning Dry”; Kim Minhee, “By the Stream”
Special mentions: “Youth (Hard Times)”, Wang Bing; “Salve Maria”, Mar Coll

COMPETITION “CINEASTI DEL PRESENTE” (FILMMAKERS OF THE PRESENT)

Best Film: “Holy Electricity”, Tato Kotetishvili
Best Young Director: Denise Fernandes, “Hanami”
Special Jury Prize: “Listen to the voices”, Maxime Jean-Baptiste
Best performance: (ex aequo) Callie Hernandez, “Invention”; Anna Mészöly, “Lesson Learned”
Special mentions: “Lesson Learned,” Bálint Szimler; “When the phone rang”, Iva Radivojević

FIRST FEATURE FILM COMPETITION

Swatch Prize for First Feature Film: “Poisonous”, Saulė Bliuvaitė
MUBI Award for Best Feature Film: “Green Line”, Sylvie Ballyotr
Special mentions: “Hanami”, Denise Fernandes; “Listen to the voices”, Maxime Jean-Baptiste

PARDI DI DOMANI SHORT FILM COMPETITION

Authors' short film competition
Best Author Short Film: “Conclusion”, Maha Haj
Special mention: “The Masked Monster”, Syeyoung Park
Short film candidate at the Locarno Film Festival – European Film Awards: The Exploding Girl, Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel

International competition
Best International Short Film: “Washhh,” Mickey Lai
Silver Pardino: “Hymn of the Plague”, Ataka51
Best Director: “Que te Vaya Bonito, Rico,” Joel Alfonso Vargas
Award from Medien Patent Verwaltung AG: “The Form”, Melika Pazouki
Special mention: “Freak”, Claire Barnett

National competition
Best Swiss Short Film: “Sans Voix”, Samuel Patthey
Silver Pardino: “Better not to kill the groove”, Jonathan Leggett
Award for the best Swiss newcomer: Gabriel Grosclaude, “Lux Carne”
Special mention: “Progress Mining”, Gabriel Böhmer

PARDO VERDE COMPETITION

Green Pardo: “Agora”, Ala Eddine Slim
Special mentions: “The Spot”, Willy Hans; “Rotating Rounds”, Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik

INDEPENDENT JURY AWARDS

Prize of the Ecumenical Jury: “Poisonous”, Saulė Bliuvaitė
Special mention: “Moon”, Kurdwin Ayub
FIPRESCI Prize: “Youth (Hard Times)”, Wang Bing
Europa Cinemas Label: “Moon”, Kurdwin Ayub

JUNIOR JURY AWARDS

International competition
First prize: “Green Line”, Sylvie Ballyot
Second prize: “Poisonous”, Saulė Bliuvaitė
Third prize: “Salve Maria”, Mar Coll
“Environment is Quality of Life” Award: “Youth (Hard Times)”, Wang Bing

Present Cinema Competition
First prize: “Holy Electricity”, Tato Kotetishvili
Special mention: “Olivia & Las Nubes”, Tomás Pichardo-Espaillat

Short film competition
Prize of the International Competition: “Razeh-Del”, Maryam Tafakory
Special mention: “Punter,” Jason Adam Maselle
National Competition Prize: “Sans Voix”, Samuel Patthey
Special mention: “Lux Carne”, Gabriel Grosclaude
Prize for short films: “Conclusion”, Maha Haj
“Environment is Quality of Life” Award: “Three Leaves”, Eléonore Coyette and Sephora Monteau

Critics' Weekly Awards

Grand Prize: “We Inherit”, Simon Baumann
Marco Zucchi Prize (for the most aesthetically and formally innovative documentary film): “La Déposition”, Claudia Marschal

Residence International Short Film Festival Winterthur @ Villa Sträuli: Mariam Tafakory

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