The Lorenzo Vecchio Award (devoted to the festival founder who died in 2005) went to the Turkish-British short film Çevirmen (The Translator), by Emre Kayis. “A film of rigour and poetry that powerfully narrates the passage from adolescence to adulthood of the shy Syrian protagonist Yusuf, filmed on the margins and bravely focusing on the relationship between the characters and their crucial tensions”, the Jury explained.

The Jury bestowed 4 special mentions to: Bon appétit, la vie! by the Slovenian director Urska Djukic “for a story, told through a female gaze, exploring the complicity of friendship and the search for identity through these connections.”; the English Camrex, by Mark Chapman, “an important film, that through the documentary form gives voice to a pained humanity and refuses to look the other way”; the French-Belgian co-production by Antoine Giorgini Réplique, “for its capacity to express the depths of friendship through a perfect mise en scene of absurdity and using the light-hearted language of comedy”; the French animation Big Bunny, Again? , “a film that brings together autobiography and signs, journeying back to the joyful innocence of childhood”.

The President of the Jury, Antonello Faretta, said: “The quality of the 31 short films in competition we were asked to judge throughout this fantastic edition of Magma was really high and, taking into account the great variety of the films selected, we have picked what we felt was the very best of fiction, documentary and animation. We have awarded the films that we thought were more innovative in terms of topics and language used to talk about the contemporary world”.

The Audience Award went to the Russian animation We Can’t Live Without Cosmos, by Kostantin Bronzit.

The jury, chaired by the filmmaker Antonello Faretta, is also composed of the actress Marina Rocco and Charlotte Micklewright, a representative of Encounters Short Film Festival.

Magma is made possible with the support of Acireale Town Council and the partners Pasticceria Costarelli, Ceramiche De Simone, La Bottega dei Monsù, Cittadinanzattiva Sicilia Onlus and Etna Mareneve Escursioni.