The winners of the Official Competition of the seventh edition of BEAST are already known! This year, the festival attributed a prize and a jury mention for each category. The best fiction, documentary, experimental and animation works were awarded by this year’s jury.
EAST WAVE AWARD for Best Fiction Film
Beware of a Good dog!, Adelina Borets
Ukraine | 2024 | 26’
Stepan regularly adopts old dogs from the shelter, who spend their last days beside him and die peacefully.It’s his own way of coming to terms with the end of his life. He dreams die peacefully in old age during the war in Ukraine. But peace is a privilege stolen by the young boy Goga. What happens when two enemies of different ages but equally lonely meet at the cemetery at night? They’ll smoke, eat a basket of ice cream, and dance.
JURY MENTION
The Ghosts You Draw on My Back, Nikola Stojanović
Serbia | 2023 | 14’
Teenage Sara travels to a small provincial town to attend the memorial service of her grandmother. The usually quiet village is being disrupted by the construction of the new railway. While fighting her fears, Sara finds shelter in a worker from the construction site.
EAST DOC AWARD for Best Documentary
Handful of dirt, Izabela Zubrycka
Poland | 2023 | 13’
Halina is one of the last funeral singers in Podlasie. Her son Andrzej is a gravedigger.
Thousands of people have crossed to the other side accompanied by them.
He dug, she sung.
JURY MENTION
Fran and Verka; or a usual day in an abandoned village, Sovran Nrecaj
Kosovo | 2023 | 13’
Fran and Verka are the sole inhabitants of Vërnakollë – the place they first met many years ago, got married and have been living ever since. After the 1999 war in Kosovo, everyone but Fran and Verka left the village. Their story is a testament to the unbreakable bonds that tie us to what we call home and to where we belong.
experimentalEAST AWARD for Best Experimental Film
Grandmamauntsistercat, Zuza Banasińska
Poland | 2024 | 22’
Film created from the Polish Educational Archive materials, tells the story of a matriarchal family through the eyes of a child grappling with the reproduction of ideological and representational systems.
JURY MENTION
Madwomen: to be a sparrow not a canary, Johannes Lõhmus, Sten Haljak
Estonia | 2023 | 22’
A housewife confronts situations to which no sane response exists… “Madwomen: To Be a Sparrow Not a Canary” is an experimental found footage melodrama composed entirely out of film footage shot in Soviet Estonia from 1960 until 1969. An experimental collage creating an alternative narrative to the story lines in the animations, documentaries and feature films of that time period.
ANIMA EAST AWARD for Best Animation Film
A border guard and his dog, Pablo Ballarín
Spain | 2023 | 3’
A visit to the border between Poland and Belarus.
JURY MENTION
Swifts, Ada Napiorkowski
Estonia | 2024 | 5’
Like every year, the swifts are returning to their homes in the “sleeping districts.” But this year the humans are gone, leaving nothing but spirits.
