"Chamomile" wins Best Film!

A few days after its win at the Drama Short Film Festival, "Chamomile" won the biggest award for the new Athens International Film Festival competition section for Greek short films, an award that is accompanied by a cash prize of 2,000 euros. The jury president, Elissavet Chronopoulou, cited the film's narrative economy and how deeply it managed to move them, as reasons behind the unanimous vote.

The Best Director award was shared between Yannis Bereris ("Endimia") and Romanos Argyropoulos Ioannou ("Munchies"), "two noteworthy specimens of potential progress, dynamism and freedom", while the Best Screenplay award went to Pavlos Methenitis and Costas Gerampinis for the film "Iceberg" and "its clear outlook, economy and depth of its characters".

The jury president, Elissavet Chronopoulou, stressed that it was a process that all jury members - Vena Georgakopoulou, Fenia Kossovitsa, Michalis Konstantatos and Theofilos Papastylianos - enjoyed, despite the large number of submissions. "We watched the films carefully, we disagreed with each other, we agreed, we defended them...We didn't follow any rules in the end, we picked the films that made us feel something, even if they were the least technically accomplished."

She added: "The financial crisis has put an immense pressure on filmmaking, psychologically, thematically and aesthetically. The notion of death and the feeling of pessimism rule supreme, as well as the feeling of no way out, and desperation for the characters, who are confused, and are violent towards each other or are the victims of it. We admired achievements in every field, and singled out the films with most virtues or those who spoke to our hearts."

And she concluded by noting: "In such hard-hitting times, we found ourselves facing the paradox of the large number of films in competition. This should in no way, however, be an alibi for the lack of state support. It is the state's duty to support culture, as stated in the Constitution."

The awards will be given during the official award ceremony on Sunday night.