Now that we’ve wrapped the Inverness Film Festival for another year we wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who came to this year’s IFF and voted in the Audience Award.
Nearly 2500 tickets were sold across our 7 day festival. Thank you to everyone who supported the festival and joined us on a journey of discovery into the best new international cinema.
We can now reveal that NO OTHER LAND has won this year’s Audience Award! This unflinching documentary is an account of life on the conflicted territory of the West Bank, with a remarkable relationship between a Palestinian and an Israeli at the heart of it.
Read the full list of Audience Award Winners below. Wherever possible, we will be brining these films back to our screens on general release.
THE FULL LIST
1. NO OTHER LAND (Occupied Palestinian Territory/Norway, dir. Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor - 2024)
Winner of the Maysles Brothers Competition at Docs Ireland and The Tim Hetherington award at Sheffield Doc Fest, No Other Land follows Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist, who films his community of Masafer Yatta being destroyed by Israel's occupation, as he builds an unlikely alliance with an Israeli a journalist who wants to join his fight.
Their complex bond is haunted by the extreme inequality between them: Basel, living under a brutal military occupation, and Yuval, unrestricted and free. This film, by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists, was co-created during the darkest, most terrifying times in the region, as an act of creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice.
Returning to Eden Court Cinema December 2024.
2. FLOW (Latvia/France/Belguim, dir. Gints Zilbalodis, 2024)
The world seems to be coming to an end, teeming with the vestiges of a human presence. Cat is a solitary animal, but as his home is devastated by a great flood, he finds refuge on a boat populated by various species, and will have to team up with them despite their differences. In the lonesome boat sailing through mystical overflowed landscapes, they navigate the challenges and dangers of adapting to this new world.
Director Gints Zilbalodis is a Latvian filmmaker and animator. His debut feature film Away which he made entirely by himself won the Best Feature Film Contrechamp Award in Annecy. It has been selected in more than 90 festivals and sold in 18 territories. His fascination for filmmaking began at an early age watching classic films and making shorts. Prior to Away he made 7 short films in various mediums including hand-drawn animation, 3D animation and live-action and often mixing their characteristic aesthetics.
Flow is his second animated feature film, having its World premiere at the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes.
Returning to Eden Court Cinema in 2025.
3. CONCLAVE (UK/USA, dir. Edward Berger, 2024)
From director Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front) Conclave follows one of the world’s most secretive and ancient events – selecting a new Pope. Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is tasked with running this covert process after the unexpected death of the beloved Pope. Once the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders have gathered from around the world and are locked together in the Vatican halls, Lawrence finds himself at the center of a conspiracy and discovers a secret that could shake the very foundation of The Church.
Returning to Eden Court Cinema mid-December 2024.
4. Kim Carnie Out Loud (Scotland, dir. Maureen MacLeod 2024)
From the age of 16, Kim Carnie spent six years in a secret same-sex relationship.
In Kim Carnie Out Loud, Kim meets other members of the LGBTQ+ community from around the world, who also hid their sexuality for a variety of reasons, from being born in a country where being gay is illegal to feeling pressure from their family or community. She also meets LGBTQ+ activists, fighting each day to make the world a better place.
This documentary sees Kim reflecting on the internal homophobia that she felt for a long time but which has now been replaced by a deep sense of pride in her sexuality and in being in the LGBTQ+ community. Inspired by the people that she meets and some of the stories that she hears, Kim writes songs, providing a powerful soundtrack to the documentary.
Kim Carnie Out Loud is both an exploration of the challenges faced by people because of their sexuality and a joyous celebration of being gay.
5. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Iran/Germany/France, dir. Mohammad Rasoulof 2024)
Iman (Misagh Zareh) has just been promoted to be an investigating judge at the Revolutionary Court in Tehran when a huge protest movement sweeps the country following the death of a young woman. Although the demonstrations increase and the state cracks down with ever tougher measures, Iman decides to side with the regime, upsetting the balance of his family. While the devout father struggles with the psychological strain of his new job, his daughters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki) are shocked and electrified by the events. His wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), on the other hand, is desperately trying to keep everyone together. Then Iman realises that his service weapon has disappeared and he suspects his family ...
Mohammad Rasoulof's The Seed of the Sacred Fig provides a stark reckoning with the unjust regime in Iran, told as a political thriller and filled with authentic images of the protests during autumn 2022.
The film had its world premiere in competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival where it received the Competition's Special Jury Prize, the FIPRESCI Prize, the European Art House Cinemas Award (AFCAE), the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Prix François Chalais for Best Film. The film went on to win the Audience Award in Sydney and is now also screened at other film festivals such as Locarno, Toronto, San Sebastian as well as important autumn festivals in the USA. The Seed of the Sacred Fig has also been shortlisted for the European Film Award.
