Award winners at TIFF 2022

The Aurora Prize

The festival's main award, given to the best film in competition. With the award follows 5000 EUR, given by the festival to the director of the winning film.

This year's jury: Egil Håskjold Larsen, Elisa Fernanda Pirir, Margrét Vilhjálmsdottir

The jurys statement: 

We first want to give praise to a wonderful and extremely diverse program that has made it very challenging for this years jury to pick a winning film.

We have experienced so many emotional journeys and such well-crafted films ranging from 4 hour documentaries, comedies to social realism at its best.

We want to give this year's Aurora Prize to an energetic, fearless and artistically courageous filmmaker, who without any compromise shook us from our seats and kept surprising and engaging us in a particularly relevant story of our time.

We want to encourage and compliment a brave young filmmaker who we hope will keep challenging the future of the art of cinema.

The winner film: MEDUSA, Brazil 2021.

Director: Anita Rocha da Silveira

The FIPRESCI Award

The international critics' prize, awarded by Federation Internationale de la Presse Cinematographique, the international umbrella organization for professional film critics and film journalists. FIPRESCI works to promote film culture and safeguard professional interests.

This year's jury: Florian Vollmers, Terje Eidsvåg, Iva Privrelová

The jurys statement: 

Our prize goes to a film that reminds us how powerful cinema can be by its smart, unobtrusive use of observation and music. An uplifting film about universal themes that inspires us to do our best and shows us why it is important, especially in this fast and isolating age, to devote your time to others to really appreciate them - and also how enriching it is to learn, create and hang out together. It is a long film, yet all of us didn’t want it to end. We thank German filmmaker Maria Speth and her crew for introducing us to one exceptional teacher in this exceptional documentary. And we want to encourage all other viewers to spend their time in the company of Mr. Bachmann and his class.

The winner film: MR. BACHMAN AND HIS CLASS, Germany 2021.

Director: Maria Speth

The Don Quixote Prize

The Don Quixote Prize is awarded by FICC (Federation internationale des cine-clubs). Founded in 1947 during the Cannes Film Festival, FICC/IFFS is an international umbrella organization for film societies and non-profit cinemas. The Italian film director Gianni Amelio is the honorary president of the FICC.

This year's jury: João Paulo Macedo, Peter Stuart Robinson, Holger Twele

The jurys statement:

The FICC jury awards its Don Quixote prize to a film that plays with the audience’s expectations in an impressive, sometimes even oppressive way. What is really happening and what is merely in the minds of the viewers? Could it even be supernatural? This is a chambre-play-like road movie about guilt and revenge, in which the landscape and the social environment nevertheless play an important role, and a young woman becomes the victim of a still male-dominated society. The award goes to the film MIRACLE by Bogdan George Apetri.

The winner film: MIRACLE, Romania, Czech Republic 2021.

Director: Bogdan George Apetri

Special mention goes to:

The FICC special mention goes to a timely film. These are days of doubts, fears and suspicions, especially of those who seem different to us. This is a film that gives courage and hope to us and the next generation. More specifically, it shows how, with the right social skills and historical awareness, it’s possible to overcome cultural and religious differences. Above all, there is a need for role models and educators who have the welfare of the children they protect at heart, as shown in the documentary MR BACHMANN AND HIS CLASS by Maria Speth.

Special mention goes to: MR. BACHMAN AND HIS CLASS, Germany 2021.

Director: Maria Speth

The Tromsø Palm

The Tromsø Palm is awarded to the best film in the sidebar Films from the North. The director of the winning film is given 5000 Euros – offered by the four resource centers for film in the Barents Region: POEM Foundation, Oulu, Finland; Filmpool Nord, Luleå, Sweden; Film i Västerbotten, Umeå, Sweden; Nordnorsk Filmsenter, Tromsø, Norway.

This year's jury: Ragnhild Nøst Bergem, Victor Lindgren, Egill Pálsson

The jurys statement:

The film makers manage to tell a cruel story in a beautiful way. An intimate portrait about the never-ending struggle. Where everything is reflected in the children’s eyes and the nature around us.

A film that reveals the systematic oppression of the Sami culture and way of living

by laying borders, where there where none. - By laws, that protect the stronger.

We the jury hope this film can move freely across borders, towards change.

The winner film: RADJI, Belgium, Sweden, Norway 2021.

Directors: Georg Gøtmark and John Erling Utsi

The Faith in Film Award

The Faith in Film Award was given for the first time in 2017. It was established by Center for Art, Culture and Church, Norwegian Church Academies and Tromsø Church Academy in collaboration with the Tromsø International Film Festival. The winner film should engage and stimulate to reflection and critical thinking about the religion’s place in society and in people’s lives.

This year's jury: Ylva Liljeholm, Fartun Hussein, Morten Kjerstad

The jurys statement: 

This year’s award from Faith in Film goes to Medusa, directed by Anita Rocha da Silveira.

In Medusa we get to follow a young woman, Mariana, during her journey from dogmatic sisterhood and perverted theology to physical and spiritual liberation.

Medusa is thought provoking, funny, scary, entertaining, beautiful, frightening, youthful and not least a solid craft and a work of art that has obviously cost blood, sweat and tears to make.

Medusa plays with genres, it juggles a large number of themes, it is politically timeless and at the same time it puts the finger on fascism in today Brazil.

The jury would like to emphasize that the film reminds us that we as humans are not good or evil but nuanced. We are living beings who will always be influenced by the context we are put in.

As humans we may be divided but the divine is in all of us. This piece of film art makes us as audiences want to be better humans tomorrow than we are today.

The jury would like to thank everyone who has been involved in making this film. Thank you so much for making Medusa available to the world.

The winner film: MEDUSA, Brazil 2021.

Director: Anita Rocha da Silveira

The Norwegian Peace Film Award

The Norwegian Peace Film Award (NoPFA) is given to a film spotlighting direct, structural or cultural violence, and which in a creative way contributes to a deeper understanding of conflicts and violence. The award is presented by TIFF in collaboration with the Centre for Peace Studies at the University of Tromsø and the Student Network for Peace.

This year's jury: Hermann Josef Greuel, Racha Helen Larsen, Anuradha Gayanath Abeykoon

The jurys statement:

We gave this years Norwegian peace film award to a complete work of cinematic art with a universal perspective on day labourers in conflict with capital and power.

Through its formal and visual narrative structure, the film focuses on the essentials, the powerlessness and abandonment of workers in a changing economic situation. Through repetition, the narrative mercilessly penetrates to the core of the problem and thereby becomes a humanistic message.

The winner film: THE WASTELAND, Iran, 2020.

Director: Ahmad Bahrami