Ammodo Tiger Short Competition winners 2023

The awards were decided by a jury of three: film and video artist Stanya Kahn, programmer, art curator and writer Herb Shellenberger, and writer, cultural programmer and organiser Simone Zeefuik.

Ammodo Tiger Short Competition 2023 winners:

Natureza Humana, Mónica Lima, 2023, Portugal, Duitsland, world premiere

“Mónica Lima’s tender narrative establishes a context in the global Covid-19 lockdowns, zooming in on a couple whose difficult feelings are sown among the stillness of their sun-dappled apartment and garden. A soft-touch approach allows for Alba and Xavier’s relationship to be telegraphed over the course of several days, punctuated by encounters with a rogue peacock, a barking dog, several neighbours and, most importantly, their children. Natureza Humana brilliantly depicts the uncertainty of the global lockdowns – and the inevitability of life moving on despite them – creating an elegantly simple but effective chamber drama between its two protagonists and the animals and humans that surround them.” — The jury on Natureza Humana

Tito, Kervens Jimenez, Taylor McIntosh, 2023, Haïti, world premiere

”Kervens “Tito” Jimenez’s spy cam footage steals painful glimpses of incarcerated life. A crucial point of view, Tito’s rare images of capture shake one to the core. Full of life and free from formal constraint, this work was a bright light and leaves us bereft that its young maker isn’t here to receive this award. We award this prize trusting that Tito’s family and Haitian activists doing anti-incarceration work on the ground will continue to benefit from it. This film is part of a larger movement, a movement led by people from Haiti and its diaspora, for whom there’s much at stake. We believe that this film adds to the much needed decolonial conversations about ownership, agency and who gets to tell which story.” — The jury on Tito

What the Soil Remembers, José Cardoso, 2023, Zuid-Afrika, Ecuador, world premiere

“José Cardoso’s dynamic, beautifully glitching experimental documentary brings us intimately into a community uprooted by South Africa’s white supremacist institutions. Using fragmentation, layering, jump-cuts and an almost gleeful rebellion against convention, the film’s stylings reflect the ruptures of dislocation and the electric tenacity of resistance. Cardoso’s editing upends our expectations of expository film, and despite all odds leaves us raucous, rooting for and charmed by a grass-roots movement to reclaim what they can of a stolen history.” — the jury on What the Soil Remembers.

European Short Film Award nomination:

IFFR is one of a series of film festivals throughout Europe that submits a candidate for the short film category of the European Film Awards. The jury nominated Repetitions by Morgan Quaintance (United Kingdom) for the European Short Film Award.

Repetitions, Morgan Quaintance, 2023, Verenigd Koninkrijk, world premiere

“In one of her interviews, Nina Simone famously wondered, “How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?” For our EFA nomination, we selected the film that beautifully reflects one of Western Europe’s current realities: that of the working class uniting, striking, rejecting. We see it in Paris, in London, and we saw it in Rotterdam right here at the Coolsingel as this festival started. With its rhythmic composition and disruptive style, Repetitions refuses complacency and ease, bucking against narrativity and demanding full retinal and psychic participation of the viewer.” — The Jury on Repetitions

There are still a number of short and mid-length films being shown during IFFR 2023. See the programme and use our ‘Short & Mid-length’ filter to see all our short film selections for 2023.