The 30th African, Asian and Latin American Film Festival celebrates its conclusion by awarding the official and special prizes to the films in competition. The curtain closes on this virtual edition and we look forward to 2022… in theatres!

All award-winning films will be available until 11.59 p.m.on Monday 29 March!

The “Windows on the World” Feature Films Competition Jury awarded the City of Milan Prize to the Best Feature Film “Windows on the World”worth €8,000. As we dedicated a special section to women’s cinema, is an all-female jury with some of the emerging faces of world cinema: the Tunisian Hinde Boujemaa (awarded in 2019 at the TFF for Le rêve de Noura), Beatriz Seigner, Brazilian screenwriter and director, winner of the Audience Award at FESCAAAL 2019 with Los Silencios (film selected and awarded in 2019 in more than twenty international festivals including Cannes and Michela Occhipinti, Jury president and Italian director who chose Africa to set her beautiful debut film Il Corpo della Sposa presented at the 2019 Berlinale.

As per tradition, the Jury composed of three Italian journalists – Egle Santolini, Davide Turrini and Hakim Zejjari – evaluated and awarded the Best African Short Film and the Best Film of the Extr’A Section.

Official prizes

Ex aequo City of Milan Award for Best “Windows on the World” Feature Film

Lina From Lima (Marìa Paz Gonzàlez | Chile, Argentina, Peru | 2019 | 83′)
Softie (Sam Soko | Kenya | 2020 | 96′)

For the stories that have such an impactful, layered and universal theme, for the reality in the poetry and the poetry in the reality, for the complexity of the the main characters, both of which stole our hearts, for the secondary roles that are all so fully and sensitively portrayed.

Best African Short Film

Da Yie (Anthony Nti | Belgium, Ghana | 2019 | 21′)

For the emotional sense of the drama, the respect for the child characters, the poetry in the use of the camera with which it outlines in 20 minutes a story of painful actuality.

Special mention African Short Film Competition

Machini (Frank Mukunday, Tétshim | Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgium | 2019 | 10′)

Thanks to a simple but all-encompassing choice of expression, to the symbolic heaviness of the use of stone, to the indefinability of each grain of dust that flies away, it reminds us that living beings are condemned forever to be the guinea pigs of history and of the abuse of power.

True Story (Amine Lakhnech | Tunisia | 2019 | 21′)

A completely original vision that manages to break all stereotypes about North African cinema and pay homage to its own tradition and the history of horror films.

Best Extr’A Competition Film Award

Los oceanos son los verdaderos continentes (Tommaso Santambrogio | Italy, Cube | 2019 | 20′)

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Special mention Extr’A Competition

Kufid (Elia Moutamid | Italy | 2020 | 58′)

How can we deal with the intrusion of a virus into our lives if not with the weapon of irony? Special mention to an astonishing film whose lucid and poetic look at the nightmare of the pandemic mixes documentary, intimate diary, memory and reflection on identity..

Special Awards

City of Milan Audience Award

Our Mothers (César Diaz | Guatemala, Belgium, France | 2019 | 78′)

CINIT Award

This is my night (Yusuf Noaman | Egypt | 2019 | 17′)

For the careful description of an evocative and colourful journey through an open city, full of dangers and temptations; for the special magic of a night that enchants and helps the eyes of a child who is a little different to become aware of himself and of his mother’s love.
The prize, which consists in the acquisition of distribution rights in Italy, is awarded by some representatives of CINIT association to an African short film with education value.

SIGNIS Award (OCIC e UNDA)

Adam (Maryam Touzani | Morocco, France, Belgium, Qatar | 2019 | 100′)

Well narrated and directed through a rare freshness of images and with a screenplay in which the eyes of the talented protagonists speak and converse. The director takes us into a world of women, often humiliated and offended, but who are the only ones, through the gift of a new life, able to make us believe and hope in mankind.
The prize is awarded by the World Catholic Association for Communication.

Special mention SIGNIS Award (OCIC e UNDA)

Lina From Lima (Marìa Paz Gonzàlez | Chile, Argentina, Peru | 2019 | 83′)

A courageous film that overturns gender stereotypes and focuses on a woman’s struggle for her identity. The director accompanies the actress-woman-Lina in her daily life through the camera’s eye, which has as its double the dream, the music, the bright and vivid colours of life.