Marija Kavtaradze’s directed feature film Slow on the 4th of May won the MIOB New Vision Award at the 21st Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz. Supporting a new generation of filmmakers in Europe, the Moving Images – Open Borders (MIOB) network consists of 7 film festivals dedicated to European cinema – Trieste, Les Arcs, Cottbus, Palić, Seville, Crossing Europe in Linz and Scanorama in Vilnius. The winning romantic drama from Lithuania will receive a financial award worth 3,000 euros and will be screened at the MIOB network’s festivals, annually gathering over 250,000 viewers. Leading actors Greta Grineviciute and Kestutis Cicenas received the award tonight.
Aimed to promote emerging European film directors, the MIOB New Vision Award is given to the first or second feature fiction films and documentaries that have already had a successful showing during at least one of the participating festivals. Each of the MIOB network members nominee 2 feature films by artistically distinctive European film directors, the winner is selected by the artistic directors of Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz in Austria, European Film Forum Scanorama in Lithuania, Les Arcs Film Festival in France, Palić European Film Festival in Serbia, Trieste Film Festival in Italy, Seville European Film Festival in Spain and Film Festival Cottbus in Germany.
“Slow is an atypical second film of the rising director. Perfectly mastered romantic drama with risk-taking and revelations throughout is one of those films that feels good thanks to the alternative narrative it offers. A promising director, coming from a small country, Marija Kavtaradze deserves exposure and support to continue conquering our hearts through her inspiring films”, Guillaume Calop, General Manager and Co-Founder of the Les Arcs Film Festival, which nominated Slow (2023) to MIOB New Vision Award 2024.
Slow, a co-production between Lithuania, Spain and Sweden previously received the Crystal Arrow award from the Les Arcs Film Festival’s jury, headed by Cannes Grand Prix-winning Asghar Farhadi in 2023.
“I am grateful to the creative team and everyone involved for this creative journey together. The next stage is about to begin. The film will meet its new audience in new countries which is so pleasing knowing that some special relationships of love and compassion are not so often hitting the front pages and big screens”, told Marija Kavtaradze, director of Slow.
With the MIOB New Vision Award the film festival network wants to highlight European art house films with an outstanding cinematic approach and artistic handwriting, which deserves wider international recognition. This official announcement of the MIOB New Vision Award-winning film marks the start of a “festival tour” of the film in 2024/2025, which will be shown at all seven festivals and intensively promoted on all channels.
“While producing bold and daring stories told by the most talented new generation of filmmakers such as Marija Kavtaradze, we aim to reach as broad a global audience as possible. We are very proud of the New Vision Award as a wider number of Europeans will be able to discuss the topics that usually don't receive the attention they deserve”, claimed Marija Razgute, film producer of Slow and a founder of the film production company M-Films.
The previous winners of the MIOB New Vision Award were Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson, the director of Beautiful Beings (2022) in 2023 for "magical realism in contemplating boyhood violence, prominently avoiding the cliches of social drama", Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, the director of Croatian debut feature Murina in 2022 for “expressing a subtle but strong attitude about misogyny and personal choices” and the Hungarian director Lili Horvát for her second feature Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time in 2021.
The passion for young European cinema and the desire to give it a worthy platform unite the seven members of the Moving Images - Open Borders (MIOB) Network: Crossing Europe Filmfestival Linz (AT), Seville European Film Festival (ES), European Film Festival Palić (RS), Les Arcs Film Festival (FR), European Film Forum Scanorama (LT), Trieste Film Festival (IT) and the FilmFestival Cottbus (DE).
