This year there was also a first edition of our European trainingsprogram Director's Village. It were incredible four days with eight talented filmmakers from five countries in Europe. A special Director's Village Development grant was given to the best Director's Village project.

Jury

This year the professionals jury had to hand out awards for the films in the International and Made in Limburg Short Film Competition: Best Euregion Film, Best Film and Special Jury Mention. Members of the jury were Director Zorba Huisman from Maastricht, actor Romano Haynes from Rotterdam and Belgian director Patrick Tass.

Award winners

• Best Film – PROSOPAGNOSIA, by Steven Fraser  (United Kingdom)
  Jury statement: "Amazing, it really gave color to the character. To give a nice playfulness to the storytelling. The eye for detail in every single photo and shot really stood out and speaks to the amount of effort that has been put into this. It really made us think and reflect on themes like loneliness and the way which we all look for a connection."

• Best Euregion Film – UNDERGROWTH, by Tim Ewalts (the Netherlands)
  Jury statement: "Magic and complex dynamics of two brothers and their overpowering father under the veil of the beautiful surroundings of nature, we got to see the ugliness of the struggle of power for control and acceptance, congratulations Tim Ewalts for his film Undergrowth."

• Special Jury Mention Prize – RETURN, by Ghiath Al Mithawi (Germany)
  Jury statement: "The Special Jury Mention goes to a film that captivated us with its subtle script, its minimalistic yet versatile acting, and its audacious statement. This film manages to question the irrelevancy of war in an enclosed kitchen with nothing but two characters who fail to communicate, a meat grinder and a washing machine. The radical cinematic language the director employs beautifully portrays the trauma, isolation and despair of its protagonist. The special jury Mention goes to “Return” by Ghiath Al Mithawi!"

• Audience Award – SHUT, by Niels Bourgonje (the Netherlands) 
  Congratulations Niels Bourgonje with SHUT!

• Director's Village Development Grant –  BEDSIDE by Adam Starsmark (Sweden)
  CineSud Talent Manager statement: "Today is the last day of the directors village and I wanted to thank our wonderful coaches Sofia Norlin and Janneke van Heesch and great eight participants for such an amazing time. First of all I wanted to say that all of the eight projects deserve this award as all of you are incredibly talented directors. You are all winners, but there is one project that we want to stimulate with a development grant. We have checked all the projects before the village began and we chose the one that moved us the most. For a well written script and a strong directors vision we would like to give a development grant of 500 euros to Adam Starsmark from Sweden with his project Bedside".

The festival

SHIFT Film Festival 2022 took place from September 14 to September 18 in the Royal Theater in Heerlen. There were 12 short films selected for the International Short Film Competition and four films were selected for the Short Film Competition: Made in Limburg. Besides that, we hosted three special screenings; an out of competition screening of Ukrainian Short Film during our Ukrainian Focus program on Saturday September 17 and we also had a SHIFT Special out of competition screening of three films including Wine by Anna Demianenko. Filmhuis De Spiegel organized several screenings of feature films. 

Next to the screening there were the SHIFT Workshops: Director's Workshop and Writer's Workshop coached by Valerie Bisscheroux. Also the Limburg Film Pitch was held on September 18. Five amazing projects competed for the best film pitch. Read more on the winners of Limburg Film Pitch.