'Toxic' Wins Grand Prix at 17th CinEast Festival

The organisers of CinEast, the Central and Eastern European Film Festival in Luxembourg, have announced the winners of this year's awards.

At the awards ceremony of the seventeenth edition of CinEast, held on Saturday 19 October 2024, the International Jury awarded the Grand Prix to the film Toxic by Saulė Bliuvaitė and the Special Jury Prize to the film Windless by Pavel G. Vesnakov. The Critics' Prize, awarded by the Press Jury, also went to Toxic. Moreover, the Press Jury decided to award a Special Mention to the film Lesson Learned by Bálint Szimler. The Young Talent Prize went to Maria Zbąska's It's Not My Film, while the Audience Award went to Waves by Jiří Mádl.

The International Jury was made up of German-Romanian director Alexander Nanau (President), Luxembourgish director Jacques Molitor, Estonian director Anna Hints, Hungarian director Szilárd Bernáth and Luxembourgish actress Hana Sofia Lopes. The Press Jury was composed of journalists Jeff Schinker, Mike Winter and Sevara Pan. Finally, the Young Talent Jury was composed of Adriano Asola, Nadine Van Breda, Tun Wampach and Antoine Raffaelli, all students of the BTS Cinéma et Audiovisuel programme at the Lycée des Arts et Métiers.

Alexander Nanau said that the jury's decision to award the Grand Prix to Toxic was unanimous among the members of the International Jury: "In the long list of coming-of-age stories, this debut film really stands out and brims with raw talent. The young filmmaker managed to draw us in by the psychology of her characters, the electrifying performances, her cinematic choices and the heightened, almost unsettling atmosphere. Our unanimous winner for Grand Prix is 'Toxic' by Saulė Bliuvaitė."

He also explained the jury's decision to award the Special Jury Prize to Windless: "The jury was absorbed by the bold cinematic choices of a director using his craft to capture the impossibility of healing from past traumas inflicted by a vanishing world drown in mythicism by its survivors. The Special Jury Prize goes to 'Windless' by Pavel G. Vesnakov."

Jeff Schinker presented the Press Jury's verdict on the Critics' Prize awarded to Toxic with these words: "For its daring artistic vision, its candid and raw portrayal of the reality of youths as they navigate their lives on the verge of adulthood, for its poetic juxtaposition of a dark and unsettling world and the beauty of a friendship between two outsiders, the Prize of the Jury goes to 'Toxic' by Saulé Bliuvaité. We'd also like to give a Special Mention to 'Lesson Learned' by Bálint Szimler, which similarly focuses its empathetic and gentle lenson two outsiders, thus offering a critical vision of Hungarian society, punctuated with humour."

Adriano Asola announced the Young Talent Jury's decision to award the Young Talent Prize to It's Not My Film, "for its effective direction, the accuracy of the characters and the depth of the script, but above all for the couple in whom everyone can see themselves." Polish director Maria Zbąska and the film's producer Inga Kruk were present to accept the award.

Jiří Mádl's film Waves received the highest scores in the public vote (in cinemas and online) and thus received the Audience Award for Best Feature Film.

Finally, the Audience Awards for the best short films honoured The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent by Nebojša Slijepčević (Best Fiction Short Film), Rising Above by Natálie Durchánková (Best Documentary Short Film) and Hello Summer by Martin Smatana and Veronika Zacharová (Best Animated Short Film).

The ceremony, attended by jury members and other guests, was followed by the screening of Levan Akin's film Crossing.

The festival, which began on 3 October, closed on Sunday 20 October 2024, with a repeat screening of Toxic at the Cinémathèque in Luxembourg-Ville. The organisers recalled that many films will remain available online via the "CinEast Online Cinema" platform until 10 November 2024.