AWARDS FOR THE 26TH EDITION OF THE EUROPEAN FILM FESTIVAL
EUROPEAN FEATURE FILM COMPETITION
“GOLDEN OLIVE TREE-CRISTINA SOLDANO AWARD”
Best Film
White Snails
by Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter
Special Jury Prize
The Pupil
by Karin Junger
Best Cinematography Award
The Love that Remains
by Hlynur Pálmason
Best Screenplay Award
What Marielle Knows
by Frédéric Hambalek
SNGCI for Best European Actress
Claud Hernandez
for When a River Becomes the Sea
by Pere Vilà Barceló
FIPRESCI Award
The Love That Remains
by Hlynur Pálmason
SNCCI Critics’ Award
What Marielle Knows
by Frédéric Hambalek
Cineuropa Award
The Love that Remains
by Hlynur Pálmason
Audience Award
The Son and the Sea
by Stroma Cairns
“PUGLIA SHOW”
Short Film Competition
PUGLIA SHOW Award
Eggplant
by Luigi Imola
Rai Cinema Channel Award
Sette settimane
by Enrico Acciani
Unisalento Award
Quand tu dors
by Salvator Rosa and Pierluigi Rosa
MARIO VERDONE AWARD
Greta Scarano
for “La vita da grandi”
EMIDIO GRECO AWARD
Pizza Flash
by Luca Guanci
Special Mention Cinecittà News
(Cinema & Reality Section)
We Are the Forest Enclosed by the Wall
by Oliver Ressler
Rotary Club Lecce Award
Come fosse luce
by Corrado Punzi
PHOTO GALLERY
With an exceptional turnout and a programme that exceeded more than 200 titles, the 26th edition of the European Film Festival in Lecce, directed by Alberto La Monica, has come to an end, confirming once again its stature as one of the most vibrant and eagerly anticipated events in the film industry. It was an edition marked by emotion and surprises, beginning with a message of appreciation from Lars von Trier—honoured by the Festival with a special retrospective—and continuing with the “Protagonists of Italian Cinema” section dedicated to Saverio Costanzo and his various films, which brought him face-to-face with students and film enthusiasts in Lecce.
“This 26th edition of the European Film Festival has been one of the most well-attended and meaningful in recent years. The audience responded with remarkable enthusiasm, filling the theatres and demonstrating how cinema remains a crucial venue for dialogue, emotion, and reflection,” stated Festival Director Alberto La Monica. “We celebrated masters such as Lars von Trier and Saverio Costanzo and presented the Golden Olive Tree for Lifetime Achievement to an enlightened producer like Nicola Giuliano. —from inclusion to sustainability, as well as current issues that directly affect us—reminding us that cinema is not merely storytelling but also inspires responsibility. We are truly pleased to have given strength to these voices, welcomed by the city of Lecce with sensitivity and engagement. Our commitment is already focusing on the next edition, with the same passion and desire to build bridges between audiences and meaningful stories,” concluded the Director.
The Golden Olive Tree Award for Best Film along with the Lifetime Achievement awards have been crafted by Michele Amato of Mikama Gioielli, an artisan based in Molfetta, who individually creates each piece, just like his olive trees, each with its own unique and changing shapes.
In the spirit of sustainability, this year the Festival chose to support the efforts of the Salento master artisans, united under the CLETUS Network, in order to raise awareness about the removal of precious olive wood by awarding prizes representing a strong artistic and cultural significance. Some of these pieces were created by master craftsman Fabrizio Mastrogiovanni, while the Mario Verdone Award plaque was produced by FuturoRemoto Gioielli, designed by Gianni De Benedittis.
ALL THE FESTIVAL AWARDS
The Jury of the “Golden Olive Tree” Feature Film Competition, chaired by Lene Børglum and composed of Marco Giusti, Dubravka Lakic, Paolo Strippoli and Olena Yershova, presented the “Golden Olive Tree -Cristina Soldano Award for Best Film”, the Special Jury Prize, the Best Cinematography Award, and the Best Screenplay Award. Among the competition films, the following prizes were also awarded: the SNGCI Award for Best European Actress/Actor, the FIPRESCI Award, the Cineuropa Award, and the Critics’ Award of the SNCCI, assigned by a jury composed of Giuseppe Ghigi, Irene Gianeselli and Marco Lombardi. The Audience Award was determined through voting by Festival participants.
The Golden Olive Tree – Cristina Soldano Award for Best Film goes to White Snails by Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter (Austria, Germany, 2025): “In the dead of night, she knocks on his door… this is the beginning of an amazing film in which two invisible souls, in the midst of a suffocating world, embrace one another; they are like snails living in an urban environment deprived of oxygen. Based on real characters and existential questions, the film is directed with extraordinary finesse, allowing non-professional actors to create authentic characters. This film addresses society’s poeticization of death, which is both a way of dealing with the horrors of our time and a poison that is intoxicating our youth,” reads the jury statement.
The Special Jury Prize goes to The Pupil by Karin Junger (Netherlands, Belgium, 2025) “For its ability to depict with great clarity the attributes of manipulation, supported by a consistent mise-en-scène and the intense effort of the two protagonists—among them Bart de Wilde, a remarkable teenage actor who is making his debut. The dangerous impulses at the core of the story are addressed without resorting to simple demonization, while supporting a profound consideration of the psychological trauma it generates,”reads the jury statement.
The Best Cinematography Award goes to The Love That Remains by Hlynur Pálmason (Iceland, 2025) “For its ability to narrate the complexity of a relationship in its final moments through images, set against a landscape that towers over its inhabitants in its eternal majesty. The cinematography forms a seamless unity with the mise-en-scène and distinguishes itself from the prevailing contemporary aesthetics of various platforms,” reads the jury statement.
The Best Screenplay Award goes to What Marielle Knows by Frédéric Hambalek (Germany, 2025) “For its ability to portray the complexity of family relationships through a fantastical narrative device that does not attempt to explain, but rather present why things happen, shedding light on useless hypocrisy and fleeting pride persisting in the Western family,” reads the jury statement.
The SNGCI Award for Best European Actress/Actor, presented by the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, chaired by Laura Delli Colli, goes to Claud Hernandez, lead actress in When a River Becomes the Sea by Pere Vilà Barceló (Spain, 2025), with the following jury statement: “For her intense performance, anything but melodramatic, in a complex film where she alternates between anger and internal suffering caused by painful scars that are difficult to erase due to the trauma of violence, even amidst subtle psychological torment. Claud Hernandez gives strength and credibility to a female character and to a storybranded by the theme of sexual abuse, as she reconstructs an identity by gradually immersing herself—like in an archaeological excavation, reminiscent of her studies—into the memory of a painful experience that must be revisited to overcome the trauma. Her journey through deep feelings and memories slowly restores her strength to rediscover herself and awaken her consciousness to surpass the dramatic memory of violence.”
The FIPRESCI Award (International Federation of Film Critics), presented by the jury composed of Nicola Angerame, Susanne Gietl, and Stojan Sinadinov, goes to The Love That Remains by Hlynur Pálmason (Iceland, 2025), with the following jury statement: “The film tells the story of a family living in Iceland as they confront nature’s wilderness, the difficult dynamics within a married couple, and complicated creative desires. The courage of the characters is reflected through art, nature, and cinematic style. Hlynur Pálmason manages the three fundamental aspects of the film—direction, screenplay, and cinematography—with profound precision and a confident manner.”
The SNCCI Critics’ Award (Italian National Syndicate of Film Critics), awarded by the jury composed of Giuseppe Ghigi, Irene Gianeselli, and Marco Lombardi, goes to What Marielle Knows by Frédéric Hambalek (Germany, 2025), distributed by Lucky Red (Italian title: Lo schiaffo), with the following jury statement: “For its ability to reveal, through the innocent eyes of a daughter, the hypocrisies of marital relationships with outrageous fierceness, while maintaining a constant balance on that delicate ridge which separates plausibility from mere fantasy.
The Cineuropa Award, presented by director Valerio Caruso and handed out in Lecce by Pilar Campos, goes to The Love That Remains by Hlynur Pálmason (Iceland, 2025), with the following jury statement: “For its ability to highlight the beauty of everyday life, harmony with nature, and the demanding search for balance from which everything (or almost everything) flows, the Cineuropa Award goes to The Love That Remains. In a world teetering on destruction, fatigue, and the impulsiveness of immediacy, this film offers us a new, slow, delicate, and deeply moving perspective on ‘what remains.’ It is an intimate story about the passage of time, transformation (of people, family, and things), and impermanence.”
The Audience Award goes to The Son and the Sea by Stroma Cairns (UK, 2025).
For the Puglia Show section, the jury, composed of Salvatore Caracuta, Chiara Idrusa Scrimieri, and Giacomo Toriano, awarded the CNC Award and the Augustus Color Award for Best Short Film in competition to Eggplant by Luigi Imola: “For the passion and effectiveness of its visual narration, the flexibility of the screenplay, the well-balanced dialogue, and a meaningful and subtly distinctive story expressed with a mastery of cinematic language without indulging in rhetoric.” A special mention was given to Felicidad by Francesco Mastroleo: “For the originality of its directorial vision and the distinctive cinematic use of narrative flow.”
The Unisalento Award, presented by the DAMS jury, goes to the Puglia Show short film Quand tu dors by Salvator Rosa and Pierluigi Rosa. “The short film displays a strong visual identity, using black and white to create a disturbing dimension, turning the bedroom area into a living space, ever-changing organism that mirrors the internal tensions of a couple. The editing is accomplice to this emotional construction, alternating moments of suspension with abrupt cuts that break narrative continuity and draw the film towards psychological horror and anti-narrative territory. The cyclical structure of the story effectively reflects relational toxicity, as portrayed in the film.”
The Rai Cinema Channel Award, with a jury composed of Maria Federica Lo Jacono, goes to the Puglia Show short film Sette settimane by Enrico Acciani, with the following jury statement: “For the ability to give voice to the state of silence, doubt, and loneliness, in offering a choice that only belongs to those who live within it. A work that, with sensitivity and formal restraint, tackles a difficult and intimate theme such as abortion, conveying its emotional truth without ever yielding to judgment or sentimentality.”
The Mario Verdone Award, now in its 16th edition and assigned by a jury composed of Carlo, Luca, and Silvia Verdone, goes to Greta Scarano for La vita da grandi, with the following jury statement: “For her ability to portray theoccurrence of autism with delicacy, realism, and irony, offering renewed and deeply sensitive attention to the significance of inclusion, and demonstrating—together with the film’s exceptional young protagonist Yuri Tuci, an autistic child who has now become an actor and happily embraces the stage—that cinema, even by way of a gentle comedy, can help highlight the importance of emotional relationships when facing the challenges of those who risk being unable to fully experience not only their dreams, but even the simple ‘normalcy’ of everyday life.”
The Emidio Greco Award is now in its 13th edition. The Selection Committee is composed of Alessandro Giorgio (Italian Short Film Centre) and Alberto La Monica (Director of the European Film Festival), while the Jury is made up of the Greco Family. The award goes to Pizza Flash by Luca Guanci: “When a strong directorial vision—with awareness and aesthetic accomplishment—seeks to serve a story and a theme that reflect contemporary society, then, the cinematic result can be considered fully achieved. That is exactly what happened with this short film that is awarded the thirteenth edition of the Emidio Greco Award, in which all the components of film language and grammar (from cinematography to set design—both of exceptional quality—from acting to the use of ‘archival material’ in the editing) integrate perfectly in the portrayal of a possible future in which the before and after are divided by an ethical break affecting both individual and collective levels.”
Special Mention Cinecittà News for the Cinema & Reality section. The editorial team—Cristiana Paternò, Nicole Bianchi, and Andrea Guglielmino—has awarded the prize to We Are the Forest Enclosed by the Wall by Oliver Ressler. Jury statement: With We Are the Forest Enclosed by The Wall, Oliver Ressler delivers a work of both political and poetic power. The film entwines ecology and collective resistance, restoring voice and dignity to threatened communities and environment. Through supportive and compassionate visual language, Ressler transforms documentary filmmaking into an act of profound empathy toward all living things.
The “Rotary Club Lecce” Award, presented to a film whose themes and narrative closely align with the prestigious humanitarian association’s mission “We serve,” this year goes to Come fosse luce by Corrado Punzi “for its powerful testimony of inclusion and courage. The story of a football team composed of visually impaired players who fully embodies the Rotary motto “WE SERVE” showing how service can arise from engaging together, creating opportunities and hope both for oneself and for others.”
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The European Film Festival, conceived and produced by the Cultural Association “Art Promotion,” has always been organized with the support of the Puglia Region, the Ministry of Culture-Directorate General for Cinema and Audiovisual, and the Municipality of Lecce.
The European Film Festival is carried out under the High Patronage of the European Parliament and is a member of the Association of Italian Film Festivals. It also benefits from the collaboration of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, SNGCI, SNCCI, FIPRESCI, the National Short Film Centre, and the patronage of the Apulia Film Commission, the University of Salento, Camões IP and the Portuguese Embassy in Rome, the Austrian Cultural Forum in Rome, and the Spanish Embassy.
Media partners: Rai, Cinecittà News, Cineuropa, FRED Film Radio.
Festival Partners: Agricole Vallone, Augustus Color, Futuro Remoto Gioielli, Liberrima, Quarta Caffè, Rai Cinema Channel, Rotary Club Lecce.
