WINNERS

WINNERS

Discover the award-winning films of the 4th Athens Short Film Festival’s 9 competition categories and learn more about all the inspiring filmmakers we featured this year.

Best Animation Winner

Per Aspera Ad Astra

The daily life of a little hen housekeeper, torn between her work, her children and her old mother.

Franck Dion

Best Cinematography Winner

Terminal

An 80 year old woman spends her time at a bus station. She's waiting for the right moment to leave this place forever.

Kim Allamand

Best Comedy Winner

Bless Me, Father

A man goes to the church in order to confess his last sin to an exasperated young priest.

Boubkar Benzabat

Best Directing Winner

If We Smarten Up

After the sale of the family flat, live-in maid Maria finds herself homeless and stranded. Making the most of a desperate situation, she decides to declare the broom cupboard, located on the same floor as her former flat, her new home. Her neighbours however are everything but pleased by this solution. They start to see the elderly maid as an intrusion into their lives, devaluing their properties, stealing their doormats, and can’t help but wonder how they could get rid of her. Inspired by real events.

Larisa Faber

Best Documentary Winner

9 Degrees

A personal journey of a man who discovers, through genetic testing, that he is one of 9 siblings, finding the love and acceptance in a family he never knew he needed. Demetre Papageorgiou grew up as the oldest child of George and Cynthia, Greek immigrants, who settled in the Midwest. All of that changed when Demetre got a call from a man named Chris Bone of Dallas, Texas – a man who, it turned out, was his half brother. That day Demetre found out that not only did he have a half brother he never knew about, but he had 7 older siblings he didn’t know he had. In the following months, Demetre uncovered the truth about his family and their unusual story – a story of 9 strangers scattered across America with one thing in common – their father George Papageorgiou. This is the story of 5 brothers and 4 sisters, separated by distance and decades, coming together for the first time, thanks to online DNA testing. This is a story of brothers and sisters who beat all the odds and find the loving family they never knew they were looking for.

Kalim Armstrong , Demetre Papapgeorgiou

Best Drama Winner

Madonna f64.0

After an important surgery, Maria returns to her family home, in order to recover. Living with her mother, her sister and a newborn baby. While Maria’s body starts healing, a deeply hidden desire of hers surfaces. Maria wants to come close to the baby, and this creates a serious threat to the “safety” of the family home.

Stavros Markoulakis

Best Editing Winner

In It Together

Two lovers of an unhealthy relationship is trying to keep the sprak alive

Filip Tellander

Best Experimental Winner

Lyé-buhl

An ascetic monk who follows Buddhist teaching confronts agony between the world of Color(Phenomena) and the world of Void(Fundamental). The two worlds exhibit stark contrast with one another like nature and man-made, past and present, day and night, eternity and moment, Nirvana and Anguish. The monk strives to disentangle himself from the world of Color as he strides towards Nirvana, the world of Void. In the end, he realizes that both worlds are inseparable as much as they are a resonant pair, and that his anguish ultimately comes from obsession.

Sangman Kim

Best Music Score Winner

Under Pressure

After starting a monotonous day at work, the life of a man took a unforeseen turn when he realized that he kept the water running at his apartment.

Vasil Bogdanov

Best Music Video Winner

Crónico

During the 2020 worldwide quarantine, a young hip hop singer finds solace in marihuana. Crónico is a collage animation music video that explores the daily rituals of a man during these uncertain pandemic times, combined with fantasies that help him escape reality and even reimagine his own history. Crónico is a collage animation music video that explores the possible daily rituals of a man during these uncertain pandemic times thanks to the relaxing and imaginative powers of marihuana. It was a project done during the first months of lockdown between filmmakers in San Juan, Puerto Rico and animators in Medellín, Colombia. Crónico is the first single of the same title EP that narrates stories, longing fantasies, and experiences lived in our new/current way of life.

Claudia Calderón

Best Short Film Winner

Iro /he.roː/

Iro, an 8 year old girl, is ready to take off on a short road trip with her mom and a superhero towards Lake Stymphalia. A car malfunction and a bus drivers strike will make their plans difficult but with the help of the superhero they will hitchhike their way towards their destination.

Alexios Koukias-Pantelis