SNOW LEOPARD INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Winners February 2023 - March 2023

May the Force be with you!
"Best Short Film"
NO INVITATION
A brother's unexpected visit becomes a life and death argument about the past.

Directed by: Jermaine Foster
"Best Feature Film", "Best Actor", "Best Black&White Film"
THE BALLAD OF PIARGY
A story of a young woman, Juliši, who marries the son of the richest landowner in the village, but does not resist her father-in-law’s violent seduction and inadvertently finds herself in the middle of a rough love triangle. The ballad of Piargy is a symbol of modern Sodom and Gomorrah, a mirror of the distorted morals of the society. At the same time, it is a naturalistic metaphor for the subordinate position of women in the patriarchal society.

Directed by: Ivo Trajkov
"Best Animation"
The ogre, the curtain and salt
Long long ago, the ogres and the villagers decided to live in separate mountains a short distance apart. But as time passes, the promise has been forgotten by everyone. The curtain tied to the tree vaguely shields them from each other, while the salt vaguely tries to connect them. The samurai rush to the villagers' fear, but everyone is unable to understand what is so terrible.

Directed by: Misa Nishihara
"Best Short Documentary"
Erraiak (Bowels). The echo of the ancestors
ERRAIAK The scream that comes from the caves. He who listens, feels and sings. A language without words. The one that comes out from the bowels. The echo of our ancestors.But since when is the irrintzi among us? Does it still exist in the 21st century? These and many other questions are what the documentary Erraiak tries to clarify. Exploring various corners of Euskal Herria we have tried to clarify the origin and expansion of irrintzi. What influence does the irrintzi have on the activity of sailors?

Directed by: Ekain Martinez de Lizarduy Stürtze
"Best Feature Documentary"
Seven Thousand Souls
Serbia alone had lost a third of its entire population in the Great War, almost half its men.
This film talks about those that never returned home from the two biggest Austria-Hungarian prisoner camps on the territory of today's Czech Republic - Jindřichovice and Broumov.

Directed by: Sanjin Miric
"Best Feature screenplay", "Best Original Screenplay"
Bad Love Tigers
It is New Year’s Eve, 1974, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the fun-loving and adventurous teens of the Bad Love Gang are ambushed by a Russian KGB agent. This propels them to use the White Hole Project Time Machine to time travel back to World War II. The gang meets with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who guides them on their mission to protect a mysterious alien spaceship and America’s top-secret Area 51.
On their perilous mission, the gang must deal with Russian, Chinese, and Indian espionage forces who stand in their path. Along the way, the gang encounters danger, intrigue, betrayal, and a little romance. Ultimately, the intrepid Bad Love Gang triumphs over their adversaries to protect the alien spaceship and maintain the security of Area 51. It's Stand by Me Meets Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Written by: Kevin Schewe
"Best Short Screenplay"
Hearts in a Sling
After the death of their father, siblings Zoe and Christopher Chapman are forced to deal with their own pasts and reconcile with the mother they barely knew as she slips further away from reality before it's too late.

Written by: Stephanie Gould
"Best Adapted Screenplay"
The Dead Chip Syndicate
Offered the chance to run his twin brother's A.I. company, Anthony Wilson ditches his failing screenwriting career to start anew in Macau. The job turns highly lucrative when Anthony's new client, Cash Cheang, a pompadour-topped and Johnny Cash-loving casino operator, hands him a bag full of cold hard Yuan to implement a facial recognition system in his casino.

Written by: Andrew W. Pearson
"Best Music Video"
Detective Stories
A 'film noir' musical drama.
Is he being unfaithful?
She hires a private detective.

Directed by: Graham Pike
"Best Dance Video"
Sublime Soul
Upon contacting something sublime, our soul takes over our body and life becomes a dance, engaging with the whole in a spirit of reverence and gratitude.

Directed by: Diego Stavitzki
"Best Experimental Film"
Seven Ridges
In a desert by the sea, an ancient culture endures modernity. A grandmother and her granddaughter intertwine in estrangement over memory. The myth sheds controversy; time falls in dreams of sand, old songs and rock music.
First full-length feature drama to be ever produced in Cmiique Iitom (Seri language)

Directed by: Antonio Coello
"Best Student FIlm"
If I were a man
Trapped in a glass cage of their own making, four characters will perform their empty and ritualized actions, staging an endless hunt, synonym of their dead feelings. Michele, the surrogate son of a declining nobility, manipulates and commands his fake bourgeoise friends, Ettore and Leo, to avenge his dying love for Mariagrazia.
Only a cruel glimmer of honesty will shake the walls of their golden cage, perhaps too thick to be demolished.

Directed by: Rocco Anelli
"Best No-dialogue Film"
Edinburgh From the Skies
Edinburgh is a city of extraordinary beauty – from whatever angle it is regarded. Here we see it from the air, the camera’s eye moving across the swathe of the classical New Town, revealing streets, spires, saliences man-made and natural. This city is a poem in stone, a place of fragile beauty, a place of shifting northern light. Here it is beneath us, so beautiful that we catch our breath again and again.

Directed by: Douglas Vernimmen, Robbie Dickson, Simon Williamson, Gustavo Goncalves
"Best Director", "Best Sci-Fi"
The Prototype
Garrett Brown wakes up to a destroyed world 300 years into the future. His memory is slowly coming back thanks to drinking a blue liquid provided by human clones that survived the nuclear holocaust. Garrett remembers being part of a United States government agency and leading an investigation, in which terrorist aliens, led by Reverend Jeremiah C. Hope, plan to take over the planet. Garrett dies protecting us but is buried and hidden by the agency to later resurrect in the future. He and the clones who saved him must now come together to overthrow Piak, the alien conqueror, and take back Earth. Garrett fulfills his destiny and becomes The Prototype - the only hope for mankind

Directed by: Marcelo Grion
"Best Young Director"
Inside Outside.
A cold-blooded killer sits proudly above her victim in a bare room. Though in her guise she comes across the mysterious power of her pen. Slowly, we start to witness the gripping claws of reality close-in on her as she experious mysterious phenomena outside the walls of her room; phenomena that might very well reflect the internal shouts of moral guilt.

Directed by: Justin Yuanma Gao
"Best Director Debut"
The Power of Choice
Bettina Mumm from Wiesbaden is one of the few remaining contemporary witnesses. She reflects on
her childhood in the mid-1930s. The Nazis seize power and nothing is the way it used to be. The
radical new attitudes put friendships to the test. Pastor Franz von Bernus, as well as many young
parishioners of the Bergkirche put up resistance and took a clear stand, each in his own way. They
turn to the "Confessing Church" and fight for humanity and freedom. They are faced with the burning
question: Is this God's will what is happening out there?

Directed by: Anton Algrang
"Best Actress", "Best cinematography", "Best Producer"
Once upon a time in the Canaries
Nola, a girl of Senegalese origin, arrives in the Canary Islands in a canoe. Then begins an epic through the most defining corners of the Canary Islands in search of a Canarian father whom he never knew.

Directed by: Armando Ravelo
"Best Young actress"
My little big secrets
Film “My little big secrets” is a story about a woman who is cheated on by her partner with a younger girl. She is coming back to her childhood home to there find a lost piece of herself that she’s been looking for her whole adult life.

Acted by: Hania Niepołomska
"Best Scenography"
THE SEASONS, four love stories
Over the course of a year, four sets of intertwined characters are faced with turning points in their romantic lives. Each chapter takes place in a different season, with the central characters in each season being age-appropriate, thus: Summer, young adults, Autumn, middle aged, Winter, elderly, and Spring, a ten year old girl.

Directed by: Paul Schwartz
"Best Makeup"
Dinghy
After barely making it ashore onto the English coastline, a refugee and the man who smuggled him seek safety after a treacherous channel crossing, both pursued by and summoned to a place of darkness.

Directed by: Sangeet Prabhaker
"Best editing" , "best original score"
RUM 444
A raw, heartfelt acoustic score that highlights the struggles and difficulties of poverty, isolation and grief between a rural rancher and his ailing husband. | Genre: Americana, Roots, Folk

Directed by: Peter Svenzon
"Best original song"
Tremor Documentary 2022
How you deal with adversity defines you as a person. The subject of this documentary, John Dutton, has dealt with adversity. Not only does he have multiple sclerosis but was also diagnosed with an aggressive form of Parkinson’s disease, which manifested itself with debilitating tremors. John tried everything, every drug regimen and holistic approach there was. Nothing worked. He turned to the medical mecca of Boston for a groundbreaking form of surgery which uses soundwaves as opposed to scalpels. The audience will get to witness, in real time, non invasive brain surgery with results that are immediate. A Best Picture Oscar winner calls this documentary amazing and inspirational and considers John to be a walking miracle who will change the world. We will, together, benefit society by illuminating this form of surgery to the millions of people who have tremors.

Composed by: John Dutton
"Best Costume design", "BEst VFX", "Best Sound Design"
VORTEX the dawn of sovereignty
2047. Every human being is identified, traced and large surveillance and censorship networks have been developed. A few freethinkers have created an encrypted network of alternative research and information, making it harder for law enforcement to track down.
Among them, Serena, a teenage girl is secretly developing glasses to reveal vortices, doorways to other dimensions. What will this opening to the unknown unveil?

Directed by: Michel Rousseau
"Best Color editing"
Hogmanay
This film depicts the celebration of the New Year (Hogmanay) in Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. It is one of the largest celebrations in the world.

Directed by: Douglas Vernimmen
"Best Thriller"
Cassandra
A young woman visits a company that claims it can show the future of any relationship. When she discovers a future infidelity in her relationship with her boyfriend, she must decide whether to let the visions dictate her choices in the present.

Directed by: Alexander Manolides
"Best Drama"
Somebody's Baby

A homeless woman who, driven by grief, snatches a baby.


Directed by: Mervyn McCracken
"Best Horror"
The Rage part 2
A chemical scientist (Will) and a small team of ex soldiers have been sent to investigate the bio lab where a deadly virus was accidentally released.

Directed by: Joshua Cleave
"Best Comedy"
Dirnenlied
In Germany and Austria, "Dirnenlied" was shown as a theatre piece. It is published by Litag-Theaterlag. Like the theatre piece, the movie presents "Dirnenlied" as a criminal comedy, settled in the roaring twenties of the past century. Karla is supposed to be a lady, but doesn't feel the strong need to behave like one and speaks with a strong Berlin accent. In 1927 she drives her Mercedes Benz heading for Italy. In Innsbruck she is stopped by the police, who interrogates her. Karla is involved in a mysterious crime.

Directed by: Jan-Hinnerk Arnke
"Best Dark Comedy"
Shooting Your Own Shadow
A jaded and delusional assassin rethinks some life choices with her manager, while believing she’s the main character in a 90s style tv show called, “Shooting Your Own Shadow”.

Directed by: Joseph J Parisi, Michael Amman
"Best 360 film"
The Veil
Trapped in a haunted convent outside of time, a young girl chases her faceless doppelganger for answers. But a
demonic nun stalks them in the shadows, getting closer and closer.
Can they unravel the convent's dark secrets in time to escape, before they are punished for their sins... forever?

rDirected by: Aaron Richardson
"Best ECO Work"
The World Cruzer
The World Cruzer travels through a future of nature pollution and climate chaos. Mankind is organized more democratically fighting for the survival of their own species. We share moments of insights with the World Cruzer on his mission to save the planet. His crew supports him with familiar voices, speaking about the many facets of being human. A modern movie with contemporary electronic music from Berlin clubs. It wants to change our point of view and to call upon mankind to find a global agreement - a new common sense pact.

Directed by: Yorick Niess
"Best Educational Film"
Organic
Organic is a short nature documentary that explores the vast alien world of aquatic fresh-water ecosystems. The most ancient, but also some of the most resilient on earth. The film explores the ways of their survival and adaptation, as well as highlighting how fragile these aquatic worlds can be when the delicate climate balance is thrown off.

Directed by: Egor Subbotin
"Best LGBTQ+ Film"
Kath Duncan -The untold struggle for civil rights
A Documentary film about the life and activism of LGBTQ Scot Kath Duncan The most important Uk Civil rights leader past 100 years but almost forgotten in time until my Highly acclaimed stage play #liberty and my biography of Kath The Last Queen Of Scotland stage play Liberty

Directed by: Ray Barron
"Best Mobile film"
The Little Prince with A Mask
The Little Prince with A Mask is a short educational comedy. The film was shot entirely on a cell phone. The filming team consisted of one drama teacher and eight middle school students. The filming took place in a real drama classroom during their real drama class time.
Directed by: Yili Fan
"Best COVID-19 film"
Pain of Silence
Our world has lost too many traditional art forms. “Pain of Silence” thoughtfully captures the struggles of five traditional Thai artists whose existence has been further threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Director Christopher Janwong McKiggan, a Thai-English filmmaker and classical pianist, and co-director Poomphong Kumwong, a Thai traditional musician and filmmaker, explore the world of Thai traditional arts in a series of captivating interviews. They uncover the harsh realities faced by the practitioners, their resilience in the face of adversity, and the uncertain future that threatens to engulf these traditional and revered art forms.

Directed by: Christopher Janwong McKiggan
"Best Television script"
Brussels Sprouts
A look into the lives of the employees who work in a "fashionable" health food store and their everyday struggles they experience while providing superior customer service.

Written by: Jake D. Aupperle
"Best TV Show"
Hey, I’m The Doorguy!
4 Unknown Inspired Actors Pursue Breaking In The Less In Person Industry. With The Help Of A Talent Agent Assistant & Her Detailed Against All Odds Plan, To Not Only Help These 4 Strangers Trust Each Other, But Also Help Saving Her Boss's Dying Agency.

Directed by: Kevin Williams
"Best Romance", "Best FantASY"
The Man in the Long Black Coat
Inspired by the Bob Dylan song of the same name, 'the Man in the Long Black Coat' tells the story of a young woman in an abusive relationship living in a small town. She sees a mysterious stranger, 'hangin' around at the old dance hall on the outskirts of town.' As her life spirals out of her control, she finds solace in the stranger's company. She must choose to leave the life she knows and escape into the arms of the man in the long black coat before her husband takes even that choice from her.

Directed by: Vanessa M. H. Powers
"Best hISTORICAL FILM"
Еcho of victory
"Echo of Victory" is a documentary film dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory.
Our film is a gratitude to our veterans for their heroism and for the fact that we live in peace.
We keep the eternal memory of them, their history. Nobody is forgotten! Nothing is forgotten!

Directed by: Miras Zhumabekuly Kadyrov
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