60 short films from a record breaking 33 countries participated with all four semi finalists coming from countries that had never reached so far before: Bosnia & Herzegovina (Guguto Memeto), South Africa (On/Off), Australia (Bird Drone) and Ukraine (Under the Endless sky).

Six countries are represented for the first time:
🇧🇾Belarus, with the activist documentary “Don’t be Afraid” by Mikhail Arshynski.
🇵🇭Philippines, with the experimental “Twisted Dolls” by Kimi Crisostomo.
🇹🇲Turkmenistan, with the affectionate short “Dad Son” by Batyr Batyrov, starring Myrat Molla.
🇺🇬Uganda, with the action fantasy film “Ubuntu Uppercut” by Lukman Ali.
🇺🇦Ukraine, with the touching animation film “Under the Endless Sky” by Alexandra Dzhiganskaya.
🇻🇪Venezuela, with the romantic LGBT student film “The Reflection of the Cranes” by Juan Ballesteros.

Some other honourable mentions were “Psycho” (Greece) and “Katalinka 16” (Hungary) by former Film Olympiad winners Thodoris Sarafis and András Attila Farkas. We also welcomed the documentary on disabilities “Unconquered” (UK) directed by the director, musical legend and Grammy nominated John Parr. 🎸

The two semifinalists were both animation films! “Under the endless sky” by Alexandra Dzhiganskaya from Ukraine 🇺🇦came in fourth. By a nose – or a beak – “Bird Drone” by Radheya Jang Jegatheva from Australia🇦🇺 came in third, winning the Bronze medal as Best Film.

🇿🇦”On/Off” by Jurg Slabbert was the first thriller to reach a Film Olympiad Grand Prix semifinals – and ended up winning the Silver Medal both as Best Film from our jury and in the People’s Choice voting. Film Olympiad enjoys all genres of films and this is why we also have a special Best Thriller/Fantasy category – where needless to say, On/Off wins the Gold Medal in this Grand Prix.

🇧🇦🥇With a great finish off, “Guguto Memeto” progressed round by round into becoming the Best Film Gold medalist, entitled also for the prize money award that Film Olympiad awards to all its Grand Prix winners! “Guguto Memeto” was also deeply loved by our audience, getting a bronze medal at the People’s Choice award.

🇬🇷🥇The People’s Choice Gold Medalist was the Greek-Palestinian film “Hantush- a fairytale” which touched our audience with the story of the 14 year old Salha and her life in a Bedouin village on the West coast. Director Alexia Tsouni had an inspiring Q&A with our large audience at the end of the live screening which took place on the 24th September, in the “Melina Merkouri” Open Air Cinema.