Restart’s short experimental documentary “Valerija” by Sara Jurinčić won the selection for the 37th European Film Awards 2024 by International Festival of Documentary and Short Films Bilbao – ZINEBI. That was the decision of the jury of the international competition short film program, Florian Fernandez, Haruka Hama, Mariana Hristova, Estibaliz Urresola and Alberto Vázquez. “Valerija” will thus compete with the remaining 28 short film titles that will be nominated by other European film festivals for the final official nomination of five, for the 37th European Film Awards in 2024. The jury explained their decision with these words: “The EFA nomination goes to a film that takes the boat to the underworld in order to unite living and dead, the momentum and the eternity. Through unconventional visual means and oneiric poetics, it emphasises a ritual that keeps oblivion away from the ancestral memory, so that characters and viewers altogether can reconnect with their roots and with the very human essence”.
