(SIGNIS / INTERFILM). The Faludi Ferenc Academy organised its 23rd thematic international film festival at the end of November. Every year a certain value or social problem is placed in the focus of the festival to inspire creating and initiate social discourse around the given topics. Every year the organisers expect projects that focus on such a topic that puts a social or spiritual need or problem in the spotlight.
This year’s theme was IN COMMUNION. Community is, even if digital, our most inner self: we are born into a community and we live through our sorrows and miracles, small and great, in a community. We are born and reborn day after day through the web of our personal offline and online contacts. Community draws us into a space of mutual vulnerability and healing, unfolding the world of connectability even at a distance of a thousand miles, with all its risks and gifts.
The Ecumenical Jury at this year’s 23rd edition of the festival presented it’s award to the film A day like today by Magda Strzyżyńska (Poland, 2019).
Dreams, hope dashed by reality, and how to deal with it: Magda Strzyżyńska tells us the story of a mother and her 13-year-old daughter at a local talent show. Ordinary parents, ordinary teenagers, and their unshakable will to be someone in this world, which – in this day and age – means on stage. Whose perseverance will be stronger, the daughter’s or the mother’s?
Within roughly twenty minutes, the Polish director sketches the drama of life, the pains of growing up, coping with the plans of the parents, the attempts of bending reality to make it fit our ideas or what is said to be written in our stars. Life, however, doesn’t work that way. Life is the art of loving your child even if they fail, the art of letting your dreams behind in order to set your children free to dream their own future. Education means you do whatever it takes for your child, what you think is important for him or her, sensing at what point you need to stop your well-intentioned efforts – and knowing that your child will be more likely to copy your own way of dealing with failure than wanting to pursue the dreams you have not achieved yourself.
Watch the discussion of the Ecumenical Jury about ecumenism and the role of ecumenical juries at film festivals. Starting from 30:16 you can watch the announcement of the Ecumenical Jury (and the video message of the director) at the online prize-giving and closing event of the festival.
The members were Jean-Paul Käser (translator from Switzerland), Matías Zemljič (Argentinian-Slovenian filmmaker), Gergely Nacsinák (Hungarian orthodox priest and writer), Balázs Paksa (movie journalist). For more information on the festival, visit the festival website.