Visions du Réel Nyon
Festival international de cinéma - International Film Festival
April 23 – 29, 2009

www.visionsdureel.ch

Since 2005, SIGNIS and INTERFILM have been present at the Visions du Réel Festival in Nyon (Switzerland) with an interreligious jury. Since 2008, the jury includes a representative of the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Church, and a member from the Jewish and the Muslim faith. The jury will award its prize to a film from the international competition and possibly a commendation. This prize is endowed with CHF 5’000 by the Swiss Catholic and the Swiss Protestant Churches (Conference of the Churches in the French speaking part of Switzerland/CER and the “Reformierte Medien” in Zurich).

The members of the interreligious jury 2009 are: Herz Frank, film director  (Latvia/Israel), Saïda Keller-Messahli, President of the “Forum for a progressive Islam” (Tunisia/Switzerland, Marie-Therese Mäder, scientist in cinema and religions (Switzerland) and Mikael Mogren, theologian (Sweden), all nominated by the Swiss representatives of SIGNIS and INTERFILM.

The interreligious jury awards its prize to the film

Seishin (Mental)
by Kazuhiro Soda, Japan/USA 2008

The film is focussing on individuals diagnosed to suffer from mental diseases. They let us participate in their inner life, showing how fluid the limit between normacy and illness can be. The film presents a respectful image of human integrity.

A commendation went to the film

The Woman With the 5 Elephants (Die Frau mit den 5 Elefanten)
by Vadim Jendreyko, Germany/Switzerland 2009
www.5elefanten.ch

for its poetic portrait of the translator Swetlana Geier, who preserved her humanity despite terrible life experiences.