Octopus Film Festival winners – a Hungarian short film and a Belgian animation for audiences of all ages. The sixth edition of the festival is behind us.

This year, the Audience Award, in the Main Competition, went to “Dog and Robot,” dir. Pablo Berger – a story about friendship, its meaning and fragility, whose protagonists are the titular dog and robot spending the day at the beach. Unfortunately, when exposed to water, the robot rusts, and the dog doesn’t know what to do. It’s a film seduced by images, sound, music and fantastic animation for audiences of all ages, also presented in this year’s section dedicated to the youngest, Octopuses.

Second and third place in the Main Competition went to the films “Hundreds of Beavers” (by Mike Cheslik) and “Femme” (by Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping), respectively.

This year’s festival also included the first installment of Octopus Shorts, the International Short Film Competition, which received more than 300 films from around the world, including. from the United States, Mexico, Ukraine, Estonia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Colombia, Romania, France, Australia, Bulgaria, Hong Kong, Canada, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, Hungary and Poland representing all possible film genres. The official selection included 32 titles. The three-member Jury, consisting of film scholar and editor Karolina Kostyra, literary and film critic Igor Kierkosz, and director and screenwriter Kyle Edward Ball, awarded the main prize, and thus the €1,000 cash prize, to the Hungarian film “Amok” (directed by Balázs Turai), justifying their choice this way – for the boldness and expressiveness of its theme and style. The jury is impressed by the efficient work of the butcher and surgeon. The former brutally pokes at the guts of romantic relationships. The other efficiently stitches what is still salvageable. As a result, “Amok” is a painful but immensely satisfying experience.