On Saturday, 7 December, the 54th edition of the Festival dei Popoli in Florence ended. The film "Left Side of the Face" by Marcin Bortkiewicz took part in the competition. Thanks to the festival’s cooperation with the Syracuse University, the films were evaluated not only by the main jury, but also by students. Anna Behrens, Drayton Benedict, Shannon O’Connor and Hannah Stanley, who were this year in the student jury, announced "Left Side of the Face" as the best film of the competition and gave it the Syracuse University in Florence Award, a prize of 1000 euro.
This is how the jury justified the verdict: "For its excellent camerawork and montage and in support of a highly original photographic project which illuminates issues of time, ageing, and loneliness through a variety of individual accounts."
"Left Side of the Face" follows a photographer Leszek Krutulski, while he creates an interesting artistic project. Travelling the length and breadth of Poland, he invites people (of all ages, races, nationalities, outlooks on life and sexual orientations) to an impromptu photographic studio. If they agree, he then takes a photo of the left side of their face. He will photograph the right side in ten years time.
More information can be found at the festival website.