The 2022 IDFA Forum Awards were handed out November 16 at the new market venue Felix Meritis. Kani Lapuerta’s project Niñxs won the IDFA Forum Award for Best Pitch, Alison O’Daniel’s The Tuba Thieves took home the IDFA Forum Award for Best Rough Cut, while the DocLab Forum Award went to We Speak Their Names In Hushed Tones by Omoregie Osakpolor. Each award includes a cash prize of €1,500. The Tuba Thieves will also receive closed captioning and subtitles from inVision Subtitling.
Best Pitch winner Niñxs is co-produced by Mexico’s La Sandía Digital Producción Audiovisual and Germany’s Jyoti Film and Dirk Manthey Film. The jury, comprising Gugi Gumilang, Marieke van den Bersselaar and Natalia Libet stressed how the award went to “a project with a very strong and compelling character while bringing up a universal and timely theme” and valued “the sincere and close connection between the protagonist and filmmaker and the witty tone of the trailer.”
About The Tuba Thieves, produced by Alison O’Daniel and executive produced by Wendy Ettinger (USA), the jury said how the project “makes viewers aware of sound in an engaging and unique way, and we are looking forward to watching the 90-minute cut soon.”
Finally, the IDFA DocLab Forum jury, consisting of Faye Kabali-Kagwa, Marie Blondiaux and Zeina Abi Assy, commented that digital creation is maturing as it becomes a place for diverse, personal, and divergent perspectives, noting that the strong project selection “dove into history, feelings, nature, and personal narratives in a new way.”
About We Speak Their Names In Hushed Tones, produced by South Africa’s Electric South, they said: “It tells the story of migration through the family members that stay on the continent. We’ve been first very sensitive to this exploration of the other side of the story we have often heard of and we’re happy that it comes from this artist. We also thought that this project, still in an early stage, was a very promising way to use virtuality, namely 3D, to talk about people that can themselves become virtual. Using tech to express this, and at the end making humanity heard, can help us to understand the reality we live in.”
