It ended with a huge crowd the 23rd edition of the Festival MedFilm, sealing in the best way one of the most successful and significant issues in the recent history of the festival.

With a compound program from 98 film, of which 61 Italian previews, European and international, accompanied by many prestigious guests, Medfilm Festival has confirmed its central role in Italian cultural debate, bearing witness to the Euro-Mediterranean area extraordinary artistic quality and particularly of female eyes that rise from the South Shore. To them it has been given the 23rd edition, through a rich selection of works directed, written and performed by women. Exceptional godmother Emma Bonino, Koiné award 2017, who in his speech stressed the two cornerstones on which we should base the present and the future of the Mediterranean: "Legality and contamination of cultures" in the awareness that "the Mediterranean is a sea that separates us but a small lake that unites us". Union sanctioned the historic entrance of Tunisia in the Creative Europe Program. A successful Cultural Diplomacy for which he worked with conviction and constancy Hon. Silvia Costa said: “The cultural ties between Tunisia and the European Union have never failed during the difficult years of consolidation of the young Tunisian democracy. The collaboration between artists and creative people of the two areas, in particular thanks to film events such as festivals MedFilm, I am proof, It shows that the EU supports and promotes ".

Award conferred lifetime achievement to Merzak Allouache who presented his latest work: Investigating Paradise, and the recognition of Luigi Di Gianni.

So many activities that have enriched this 23rd edition: i MedMeetings, with the final meeting between Nicola Borrelli and Chiraz Latiri respectively director of the DGCinema MIbact and Director of the Tunisian National Film Center, aimed at renewing bilateral agreements between Italy and Tunisia and to create a development fund. The readings from the Mediterranean with five literary meetings held at the MACRO Museum with moon Changes – Women fighters in Iran, Kurdistan, Afghanistan Patrizia Fiocchetti; Pass me to take Angiolo Brown and Stephen Liburdi; Athens, cinnamon and Patrick Nissirio concrete; I'm not racist, but Luigi Manconi and Federica Resta; Autumn is the last season of the year Nasim Marashi; The shows at the MACRO Museum, with a group of 15 Tunisians contemporary artists curated by the Tunisian Embassy pays homage to Ritrovata Democracy and the photo exhibition "African Mothers" by Mimmo Frassineti the district built in the shadow of Lacor Hospital, in Uganda, housed in a space of exception: Local market on Piazza Alexandria, just steps from the Savoy Cinema and the Macro Museum.

The closing evening of the festival saw the delivery of the prizes to the winners of the different categories, and in particular the transfer of Eros and Psyche Award to the movie Men Do not Cry Alen Drljević (Bosnia), chamber play set in Bosnia fifteen years after the war. Ten men are the only guests on a remote mountain hotel. They are veterans Bosnian, Croats and Serbs and a Slovene psychotherapist wants to help to overcome the traumas they experienced. But you can forgive others and yourself for the atrocities committed? Main product to Jasmila Zbanic, a tough and touching film that probes the human psyche. Bosnian Oscar Candidate 2018.

During the evening, within LUX FILM DAYS, Event organized by the MedFilm festival now in its seventh edition, It was screened 120 beats per minute of Robin Campillo, Finalist for the Lux Prize 2017 and French Oscar submission 2018.

Many guests who have joined with generosity and great availability: Mariam Al Ferjani, Elyes Baccar, Mohamed Ali Ben Hamra, Chiraz Laâtiri, Jaber Debzi, Nadia Meflah, Ceylan Ozgun Ozcelik, Abdallah Al Shami, Anita Moukkes, I Higan, Marwen Tlili, Noa Gottesman, Maged El Mahedy, Asaf Schwartz, Abdelhamid Bouchnak, Aziz Jbali, Luigi Di Gianni, Pierpaolo Verdecchi, Elio Di Pace, Marco Gianfreda, Michele Five, Ciro D'Emilio, Valerio Burli, Sonia Giannetto, Randa Ghattas, Camilla Iannetti, Manuela Filomena, Gianluca Donnarumma, Roberto Silvestri, Jonah A. Nazzaro, Fabio Ferzetti, Federico Pontiggia, Angela Prudenzi, Tiziana Lo Porto, Francesca Bellino and Daria Pomponio.

Special mention goes to the painter and sculptor Alfredo Futuro that has all handmade Awards Festival, 7 wet statuettes in gold and silver.

So the 8 Juries MedFilm festivals have selected the winners of the 23rd edition :

COMPETITION LOVE AND PSYCHE

The Jury of the Official Competition, composed by Francesca Calvelli, Simona Maggiorelli, Wilma Labate, Karima Moual and Enzo Porcelli has decreed

Love and Psyche Award for Best Film: "Men Do not Cry" di Alen Drljević "The film tells, with a direction essential and powerful, the courage of the characters in addressing the wounds of war in a collective dimension ".

Award SPECIAL JURY: "Mandatory" in Annemarie Jacir "For the sensitivity and irony with which tells the human and family relationships in the complicated reality of Nazareth."

ARTISTIC EXPRESSION Prize in: "Summer 1993" Carla Simon "For the sobriety of the director capable of building tension and emotion. For having told with great restraint the tragedy of loss of parents ".

CONTEST OPEN EYES

The jury of Documentary Competition, composed by Giovanni Piperno, Elisa Amoruso, Mario Mazzarotto, Stefania Paris and Eric Jozsef decreed

OPEN EYES Award for Best Documentary at: "Taste of Cement" Ziad Kalthoum "For the rigorous and intense style style that takes the viewer into a hypnotic and personal world, from which it emerges a tale able to weave the daily lives of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and the conflict in their country, with a deep metaphorical sense the human ability to destroy and to build ".

SPECIAL MENTION to: "Panoptic" Rana Eid "For the ability to evoke the wounds removed Beirut, through a dream-like and exciting look on her underground part, propped up by family memories of the director ".

Methexis COMPETITION

The jury - composed by students of the National Film Schools: Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Greece, France and Italy, It decreed

Methexis Award for Best Short Film: "Into the Blue" in Antoneta Address Kusijanovic “For telling a set of nuanced feelings, with extensive knowledge and awareness of the medium of film, they create an orchestra of well, consistent and honest emotions.”

CERVANTES Prize for Short Film more creative in:"Animal" in Bahram e Bahman Ark “To have an idea pursued legendary and mythological, bringing to the screen a story as old as then current, a time to reflect on the condition of man forced to go back to being an animal was desperate to see change something then, At bottom, It will never change.”

Special Jury Mention to "Yaman” Amer Albarzawi “In order to be synthesized in a few minutes a story, through an apparent sweetness, It brings the atrocities of war.”

Special Jury Mention to "Omar" “For playing with one of the most controversial and unresolved issues of recent times, by staging a real family satire in which the eternal conflict between cultural diversity is king in a story that can make people think with unexpected maturity.”

CONTEST "I ​​HAVE TURNED A WORLD - I SHORT BACK NOW"

The jury of Antonietta De Lillo, Jonah A. Nazzaro and John Pompili awarded:

Prize "I HAVE TURNED A WORLD - I SHORT BACK NOW" to the film "Clay" by Anna Zagaglia "To the attentive and generous look in to stage domestic and family dynamics that is offered as a tool to understand and overcome absences and pains. A small revelation ".

JURY MENTION of the film "Strawberry Garden" by James Arfuso "For the careful observation of a specimen fate of the Italian immigrant experience, promising for the ability to grasp silences, solitudes, memories ".

AWARDS SIDE OF 23 ° MEDFILM FESTIVAL

The PIUCULTURE Prize, organized with the online newspaper PiuCulture and awarded by Jalila Dobere (Morocco), Magheda Ali El Shami (Egypt), Siham El Faragüit (Morocco), Atta Vafakah (Iran): "Wajib" Annemarie Jacir "A film that offers a light and at the same time profound and fascinating look at the Palestinian situation"

Awards Juries UNIVERSITY Students of the University La Sapienza (Department Italian Institute of Oriental Studies, Department of Art History and Entertainment), Tor Vergata (Department of History and Cultural Heritage Education Society), John Cabot University, National Academy of Dramatic Art Silvio d'Amico and School of Art film Gian Maria Volonte, They decided to award the following prizes:

BEST PICTURE:"Raid" by Nabil Ayouch "Because it is in our opinion the film directed by the more experienced, led by a dense script in its consistency, able to question both the contradictions that run through society at every level, because of an intimate, that places each character in front of their choices and sees the female figure an inherent capacity to reconstruct their inner conflict ".

SPECIAL MENTION: "Beauty and the beasts" of Kaouther Ben Hania "Because it is difficult not to mention a complaint so powerful film that combines an amazing technical work to great actors 'evidence'.

BEST DOCUMENTARY: "Gaza Surf Club" in Philip Gnadt, Mickey Yamine "For being able to transmit with originality and enthusiasm, the desire to escape and change a crushing reality pursuing a dream of freedom through the metaphor of sport".

SPECIAL MENTION: "Of Sheep and Men" Karim Sayad "For having told with sensitivity and delicacy of the condition and the hopes of the Algerian people through the bond between man and animal".

BEST SHORT FILM: "Animal" Bahram and Bahman Ark "For the great communication skills. An effective story in pictures that can treat a universal theme: Overcoming barriers at all costs ".

SPECIAL MENTION: "Into the Blue" Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic "For the ability to use the natural element as a means of expression of the complex inner life of the young protagonist".