RIFF ended yesterday by showing the winning films and shorts and several other screenings. This year’s festival had record breaking ticket sales and the largest audience yet. The main festival prize is the Golden Puffin Award, awarded to the best film in the New Visions category. This category consists of titles from up-and-coming directors in the current international panorama who are making their first or second feature films. 

The Golden Puffin Award & Other Categories

Super Happy Forever by Kohei Igarashi received the Golden Puffin and is according to the jury: “a delicate and luminous first film, which deals with grief in an original way and features tender characters we’ve enjoyed discovering. We were seduced by every aspect of the film: its narrative, which plays with temporalities, its sober and solid mise en scène, and its embodiment.”

Helga Guren received a special mention for her performance in Loveable. 

The Different Tomorrow Award is intended to showcase titles that shed new light on how we – together as a community – can tackle problems that are not only local but global. A New Kind of Wilderness by Silje Evensmo Jacobsen received the award and is according to the jury: “beautiful and inspiring documentary where a family is confronted with the harsh realities of a different tomorrow.”

The Best Icelandic Short was awarded to The Bride by Hjördís Jóhannsdóttir, along with a special mention to Blue Boy by Nikulás Tumi Hlynsson, who the jury agreed “shows great promise as a director with a clear vision and precision that carries through and engaged us to the end of the film.” The Bride was described by the jury as follows: “The winning film is a cohesive work that really moved us, particularly on the strength of all of its performances, not the least of which by its lead actress. The director succeeds in creating a world that’s completely convincing and three dimensional, a story with twists and emotional depth that really impressed us in such a short timespan.”

The Exploding Girl by Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel, was awarded as the Best International Short. The jury agreed that: “The Exploding Girl captures the chaotic essence of our world today, where anger and injustice permeate our lives. Through a relentless series of shocks and explosions, it confronts us with the overwhelming horror of modern existence. With a bold Gen Z aesthetic, the film skilfully portrays the tenderness hidden within the chaos. The world is horrible, so you must explode.”

My RIFF 2024 Highlights and Summary

I saw several of the awarded films at the festival and agree with some of the jury’s comments, but disagree with some as well. I am missing two films from their list, one is The Substance, that I rated 10 out of 10 (it might not fit into any of the award categories though). 

The other one is the Norwegian documentary Woolly, which is a solid 8 out of 10 for me. Woolly is about farmers on a small farm in Norway, moving from the city to take over running the farm from her parents, Rakel is gradually learning the responsibilities of being a farmer. Normally I don’t like slow-paced films but in this case it fits the content perfectly, depicting the calm countryside life without romanticizing it and showing its ups and downs, told in a warm and humorous way. For example, losing way too many lambs to a predator in summer and having to put two sheep down for different reasons. But on the other hand, the love and care for the animals and dedication to make it work at the farm. Running a farm is far from being big business and every day, one farm in Norway is going out of business. In a way it is an ode to a simple lifestyle, while highlighting the importance of farms in sustaining our societies, respect for nature and being present in the moment.

I also thought Loveable was a great film. The official description of it gives a hint but is misleading, because it is also touching on a taboo subject regarding close relationships. The dialogues in it are cleverly written and Helga Guren plays the main character brilliantly, full of nuances and details that mislead the audience at first but it all wraps up nicely in the end and makes perfect sense. This is the official description of the film on IMDB: “Maria juggles with four children and a demanding career while her second husband, Sigmund, travels all the time. One day they get into an ugly argument which led Sigmund to eventually ask her for a divorce.” My rating for Loveable: 9 out of 10.