The BNL for Cinema of the Future Award goes to Graham Foy, director of The Maiden

BNL BNP Paribas has partnered Giornate since its first edition in 2004. Since last year, as part of its mission to support excellence in cinema, the bank has assigned an award to a filmmaker who stands out for the courage of their storytelling and the artistic innovation of their film competing at Giornate.

The BNL for Cinema of the Future Award, which carries a cash prize of €3,000, honors the director of a first or second film from among the narrative features on the competition lineup, a work marked by courage and innovation. The titles in the running for the award, selected by five students of the CSC – National Film School, are: The Last Queen by Adila Bendimerad and Damien Ounouri; Ordinary Failures by Cristina Groșan; Blue Jean by Georgia Oakley; The Damned Don’t Cry by Fyzal Boulifa; Dirty Difficult Dangerous by Wissam Charaf; Wolf and Dog by Cláudia Varejão; and The Maiden by Graham Foy.

For this 19th edition of Giornate, the award is bestowed on

Graham Foy, director of The Maiden

The winner has been selected by a jury composed of five students of the CSC – National Film School: two female students in their first year of the course in directing: Renata La Serra and Sarah Carducci, and three students in their first year of the course on screenwriting: Francesco Luciani, Enrico Maria Minto, and Rebecca Ricci.

The jury has released the following statement:
“We have unanimously decided to bestow the award the author of a film that impressed us with its emotional density and the immediacy of its unrestrained, personal style, along with its ability to portray a loss as a subjective, poetic experience instead of the drama it objectively is. This film gives space and justice to good characters, quiet souls who are brimming with a desperate vitality.”

BNL BNP Paribas is deeply committed to the film industry. Its historic partnership with Giornate and many other Italian film festivals and related events attest to this commitment, which has made it possible to make over 5,000 films that have become part of Italy’s film heritage. The bank supports the entire filmmaking process, from the conception of a film to its production and theatrical distribution.