Festival internacional Signos da Noite - Lisboa |
International Festival Signs of the Night - Lisbon |
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9° Festival internacional Signos da Noite - Lisboa / Outubro 6-12, 2025
23th International Festival Signs of the Night - Portugal
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Telemach Wiesinger |
Germany / 2023 / 0:14:43 |
"Transit" is a 16mm film poem with a soundtrack by Martin Bergande, a visual journey with the aid of tangential force and the means of transport car, train, ship and aeroplane across the internal borders of the EU to the external edges of Europe.
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JURY DECLARATION:
For its beautiful composition, profound reflection on man-made travel through man-made borders, perfected montage. For a movie so deeply humane that it features none of us in it, we award the Main Award of the Signes of Nuit Cinema in Transgression Competition.
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SIGNS AWARD
The Signs Award honours films, which treat an important subject in an original and convincing way
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Hiroya Sakurai |
Japan / 2023 / 0:05:21 |
In my "The Stream series", I have expressed the transformation of landscapes as a result of the interactions between humans and nature.? In "The Stream XIII", the 13th in the series, I focused on how the landscape is transformed when the wind as a weather phenomenon streams through the fields and reed fields cultivated by humans. For sound effects, I used the sound of a wind chime. A wind chime consists of a bell made of iron with a weight suspended by a string inside. When the wind blows, the weight rings inside by wind pressure. I used the wind chime to perceive the invisible presence of wind as sound. And also we can perceive the invisible presence of wind as visualized wind ripples in the fields. I expressed the invisible scenery through sound and images.
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JURY DECLARATION:
We award the Signes Award to Streams XIII for its beautiful way to show the wind. We never see the wind, only its interaction with other things, like the waves in the sea, a dispersion of seeds or its interaction with rain or smoke. Streams XIII invites us to observe the effects of wind on fields of grain or reeds. Such a simple concept, but the result is mesmerising.
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NIGHT AWARD
The Night Award honours films, which are able to balance ambiguity and complexity characterized by enigmatic mysteriousness and subtleness, which keeps mind and consideration moving
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Marl |
Thomas Brand |
Netherlands / 2023 / 0:15:37 |
Marl seeks the deep inner caverns and that which breathes in the dark. A quiet journey to the heart of stone and the unexpected light that penetrates within. The veins of the rock, lost stones, the desolation and small life. Only to leave you there with an ever-changing perspective on this mysterious landscape.
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JURY DECLARATION:
What if we stood in time, even though it might change before our eyes without us noticing? For its beautiful imagery and compelling soundtrack. Brand transports us to a mysterious rocky mountain and allows us to change with and through it, in a subtleness which could only signify a Night Award.
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EDWARD SNOWDEN AWARD
The Edward Snowden Award honors films, which offer sensitive (mostly) unknown information, facts and phenomenons of eminent importance, for which the festival wishes a wide proliferation in the future
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Hogan Seidel |
USA / 2024 / 0:06:20 12 |
"Clear" is a visceral confrontation with the illusion of "safety," where altered 16mm footage and layered audio reveal the quiet violence surveillance imposes on trans and gender-nonconforming bodies.
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JURY DECLARATION:
The film articulates, with precision and originality, a compelling debate on gender conformity, surveillance and body control in the age of artificial intelligence. For its contemporary relevance, critical insight, and creative use of X-ray imagery as a visual language, we award Clear the Snowden Prize.
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I Saw the Face of God in the Jet Wash
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Mark Jenkin |
United Kingdom 2025 / 0:17:00 |
“I love films that foreground the fact that you are watching film,” states British director Mark Jenkin, who in his film diary returns, among others, to the Cornwall locations which gave rise to his mesmeric Enys Men. The series of Super8 shots taken from his travels and the comprehensive voice-overs make for a fascinating mosaic of encounters, observations, formative quotations from cinematic and other works, and also possible fantasies. Here, Jenkin demonstrates his ability to give his films an appealing timeless quality and to connect the familiar with the curiously enigmatic. One hundred and one interesting facts from the filmmaker’s diary.
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JURY DECLARATION:
“I Saw the Face of God in the Jet Wash” works as a giant pill that once swallowed, promises us instant knowledge of Cornwall sceneries and ambiences, entire encyclopedias of cinema and the full workings of the mind of a film-maker. If this appears impossible and excessive, it is rightly so. The film packs an excess of images, facts and relationships with a cadence which could have been easily annoying. Instead, it is immersive, the rhythm is almost hypnotic, and the beautiful result, worth mention.
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MENTION FOR THE SIGNS AWARD
The Signs Award honours films, which treat an important subject in an original and convincing way
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Rémie Radwan Maksoud |
Lebanon / 2024 / 0:04:00 |
In a realm embroidered with the threads of history's battles, the human form transforms into a poignant landscape, echoing the violence etched upon its land and people in the tapestry of the Arab land.
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JURY DECLARATION:
A beautiful reflection on the inseparable relationship between territory, landscape, and body. A body is also a contested place where wars are fought. For its powerful weaving of the feminine and the political — affirming that the body itself is political — the jury awards Upon This Land a Special Mention, Signes Award.
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MENTION FOR THE NIGHT AWARD
The Night Award honours films, which are able to balance ambiguity and complexity characterized by enigmatic mysteriousness and subtleness, which keeps mind and consideration moving
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Usama Alshaibi |
United States / 2023 / 0:07:54 |
A machine dreams.
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JURY DECLARATION:
If machines could dream, what would they dream of? Of being able to dance. An intriguing use of double exposure and a structure that is both simple and precise. The film evokes artificial intelligence becoming organic. For its poetic vision the jury awards Testimony a Special Mention, Night Award.
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DIRECTOR DECLATION:
I’m truly honored. The idea for this film first came to me when I was fifteen years old, back in 1985, while I was experimenting on a Commodore 64 computer. I was playing with an early software program that explored the beginnings of artificial intelligence. What fascinated me wasn’t just what the machine could do, but how it made me feel. Of course, a machine doesn’t actually feel, at least not yet, but our interactions with it inevitably change us and the way we move through the world. That was the seed for my film Testimony. From there, the idea grew into something that felt more like a vision. Interestingly, the film itself was made using analog video equipment and older footage, no actual AI was used in its creation, though some of the text does come from my own conversations with machines. I believe it’s essential to keep the human experience at the center of creative work, while also acknowledging the potential of these machines as collaborators. How far we take that collaboration remains an open and necessary conversation.
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