Culture
Marine Atlan wins GIFF’s top feature-film prize
The Geneva International Film Festival awarded its Reflet d’Or for best feature film to French director Marine Atlan for La Gradiva. Swiss artists and productions also received awards, including a prize for a documentary series about abuse in the Bernese religious community of Methernitha.
Marine Atlan took the Geneva International Film Festival’s top feature-film honour for La Gradiva. The French director received the Reflet d’Or for Best Feature Film as the festival announced its awards on Saturday evening. The 32nd edition of the ten-day GIFF concludes on Sunday, bringing the Geneva event to its close with a slate of winners from Switzerland and abroad. Atlan’s film led the feature-film category, while the festival also recognised work in international series, immersive experience and storytelling. The awards place a French filmmaker at the centre of this year’s feature-film programme, alongside Swiss artists and productions whose projects connect Geneva, Zurich and Bern. For audiences following Swiss screen culture, the prize list reaches beyond a single category: it links a feature film with series and immersive work, while foregrounding stories and creators rooted in different parts of the country. The festival’s closing day follows the Saturday announcement, completing a ten-day programme.
Celebrate the international series winners
The Reflet d’Or recognised work in both feature film and international series. Atlan won Best Feature Film for La Gradiva, while Polish duo Piotr Derewenda and Wojciech Lepianka took the Reflet d’Or for Best International Series with Variola Vera. The two awards show the range of forms represented in the GIFF’s prize announcements, with a French director honoured for a feature and two Polish filmmakers recognised for a series. The festival announced Derewenda and Lepianka’s win in its Saturday-evening release, before the 32nd edition wrapped up on Sunday. Their recognition adds an international series award to a programme whose other honours included an immersive project and a Swiss documentary series. The distinctions also keep the festival’s awards focused on different modes of screen storytelling: feature film, episodic work and immersive experience. For Geneva audiences, the awards offered a concise final account of the festival’s international reach as its ten-day run ended.
Put Swiss creators in the spotlight
Swiss artists and productions featured prominently among the GIFF awards. Geneva-based choreographer Gilles Jobin and Zurich-based illustrator Thomas Ott won Best Immersive Experience for Sunset Motel. The pairing brings together two Swiss creative bases and two disciplines in a project recognised by the festival’s immersive category. Zurich-based filmmaker Marina Klauser received the Swiss Series Storytelling Award for Der Engelmacher, a documentary series recounting sexual abuse within Methernitha, a religious community in the canton of Bern. The award gives a Swiss production a place among the festival’s headline honours and directs attention to a story located in the Bernese community. Together, the prizes span immersive work and documentary series, as well as creators working in Geneva and Zurich. They sit alongside Atlan’s feature-film win and the international series award, making the GIFF’s closing announcements a mix of Swiss and international recognition. The awards were announced as the festival’s ten-day programme reached its final day.
Close the festival on a global note
The final award list connected Geneva’s festival stage to stories and creators across Switzerland and beyond. The “Future is Sensible” prize went to Bangladeshi director Abdullah Mohammad Saad for Annie. Its place beside the Reflet d’Or awards for La Gradiva and Variola Vera, and the Swiss honours for Sunset Motel and Der Engelmacher, gives the closing announcements a wide geographic and formal span. The GIFF recognised a French feature-film director, Polish series-makers, a Bangladeshi filmmaker and Swiss artists working in choreography, illustration and documentary storytelling. The Swiss awards also point to distinct creative centres: Jobin is based in Geneva, while Ott and Klauser are based in Zurich; Klauser’s series concerns a religious community in Bern. The 32nd edition concludes on Sunday after ten days, with the awards marking its final stretch. For the Swiss film scene, the results place local creators and productions within an international festival programme.