Winners at IFFR, where are they now?

 Tiger Award Winner: Zheng Lu Xinyuan with The Cloud in Her Room

Chinese filmmaker Zheng Lu Xinyuan's debut was a melancholy, palpably personal film about twenty-something Muzi returning home for the New Year's celebration. Everything seems the same, but different. An expressionist search for love, (in)dependence and connection, filmed in atmospheric shades of black and white. Xinyuan described her experience of the festival:

“Being part of IFFR and receiving the award gave me courage to keep on embarking on adventures. IFFR showed me its appreciation for young spirits, unique souls and daring hearts!”

Xinyuan told IFFR about a project she has recently finished and its inception at IFFR: “Covid put international travel on hold and we were stuck in Europe for four months. I started to work on my second feature Jet Lag during that time and continued shooting and editing until late 2021. Early 2022, the film premiered at Berlinale Forum and was released in theatres in France a couple of months ago.” Since IFFR, she has also participated in shooting the behind-the-scenes for The Shadowless Tower, directed by Lu Zhang.

Xinyuan commented on the themes in her work: “As one of the single-child generation born in China and raised in the 90s in multiple places, I am naturally curious about understated or dismissed personal histories in turbulence, even on a micro scale.  As for Jet Lag, it is an essay film that touches upon diaspora, intimacy and the liability of memories. But the action itself of finding and exploring are more important. Because to me that's how a film finds its direction, time and space.”

Reflecting on the impact of the Tiger Award, she said: “Being part of IFFR and receiving the award gave me courage to keep on embarking on new adventures. IFFR showed me its appreciation for young spirits, unique souls and daring hearts!’’
 

Winner of the Robby Müller Award, cameraman and writer Diego García (Mexico)

Since receiving IFFR’s legacy price dedicated to image-makers, the first film García has finished was a directorial collaboration with Lila Neugebauer: Causeway (2022), produced by A24, starring Jennifer Lawrence, and with Jack Fisk for the production design. This is a character driven film based on an intimate portrait of a woman who returns home in recovery from an accident. Looking at reintegration and friendship, it was filmed in New Orleans and it explores the emotional and psychological process of healing and restoration. 

García is already working on another project, he told us: “I’m currently attached to the third feature film of Russian director Kantemir Balagov, whom I consider already a strong director with a unique voice that can link emotions to the visual language of a film. After reading the script and chatting with him, I knew and it was very clear to me that this is the next film I want to do and explore.”

“I feel a big responsibility to honour the natural artistic spirit of Robby Müller and the way he created the visual language for each one of his films.’’

He has also been collaborating on a big run with director Daniel Wolfe, working on more experimental short form pieces and exploring different film techniques. García commented on winning the award: “I feel a big responsibility to honour the natural artistic spirit of Robby Müller and the way he created the visual language for each one of his films.”

He explained to IFFR about what he wants to pursue in film: “I’m personally interested in the work that will explore the human condition, life and death and how we understand human behaviour in an honest way. I’m also interested in stories about family and how this cell system affects society. I love to speak through nature and everything around us, landscaping and symbolic language. From a little singular detail opening it up to the universe. I wish someday I will be able to work in a metaphysical sci-fi movie.”