Havel by Slávek Horák, inspired by the life of Václav Havel, prominent Czech playwright, dissident, and president, was awarded the top prize for Best Feature Film at 2020 Rome Independent Film Festival. The film focuses on Havel’s transformation from successful – later banned – playwright of the late 60s into human rights fighter in the 70s, leading to his presidency in the late 80’s. A Special mention went to La Fortaleza by Jorge Thielen-Armand.
The Best Feature Film Screenplay Award went to Fred Buscaglione – Una vita al massimo by Gino Clemente; the Best Short Film Screenplay Award went to Il Vino Cattivo by Gabriele Galligani; and the Best Story Award went to Camilla non sta bene by Paola Michelini and Francesca Staasch
The Award for the Best Animation Short went to To the Dusty Sea by Héloïse Ferlay (France).
The Best International Short Award went to Khoonab by Mojtaba Ghasemi (Iran) because it is “a very intense, well-conceived work, which offers an extraordinarily told glimpse of real and brutal actuality. A heartfelt tribute to fighting females, which brings the too little known reality of the current war in Syria to the screen.”
The Best Italian Short is Zheng by Giacomo Sebastiani, winning “because it succeeds in the difficult intent of narrating the marginalization of the foreigners told from their point of view, specifically, the isolation and closure of the Chinese community in Turin made of other closures and individual and collective aspirations for a more dignified life”.
Special mention went to Amore Cane by Jordi Penner.
For the Student Short Film Section, the winner is Masel Tov Cocktail by Arkadij Khaet & Mickey Paatzsch (Germany) with Special mention to Who Goes There by Astrid Thorvaldsen (UK).
The Rai Cinema Channel Prize, worth € 3,000 went to The Recycling Man di Carlo Ballauri “for the originality of the topics, for the writing down to the smallest details, for the setting in perfect cyberpunk style but absolutely credible at the same time, for the cinematography, for special effects… All worthy of a great film production. But above all for having dared and succeeded”.