LABEL EUROPA CINEMAS
"Joy is an exceptionally well researched and moving film about sex trafficking - a plague affecting all of Europe. The film has a documentary feel to it, and its authenticity and credibility shine through. We get a strong sense of Joy's everyday life, her struggles and her dignity among the complex power dynamics of her life in a universe parallel to our own. This film will spark debate wherever it is seen, and we are delighted that the Europa Cinemas Label prize will help encourage its distribution around Europe."
HEARST FILM AWARD - BEST FEMALE DIRECTOR
"There are immigrants that even the racists have no problem putting up with: they are women like Joy, child prostitutes reduced to slavery. It's going on today, in Austria, with its right-wing government. But it's no different from what's happening in Italy here and now. Joy begs us to not turn away from this reality."
NUOVOIMAIE TALENT AWARD
QUEER LION AWARD
"Sensitively written and beautifully performed, this passionate portrait of a young man's journey in search of emotional fulfillment, shows the complexity of a same-sex relationship against the background of the harsh life in contemporary Guatemala."
PREMIO FEDIC
Special mention to
"When cinema becomes poetry: the search for love with all its pain and bliss, memories, emotions; its colors that stand for joy but despair as well; nostalgia for the time together, hopes kindled anew, in a young couple that falls in love, then breaks up, then..."
Special mention - Il giornale del cibo to
"There's no land without people, goes the song that closes this documentary, which interviews farmers, shepherds and fishermen from Sicily to the Trentino, describing their tough jobs trying, among other things, to carry on the great tradition of Italian cooking - a heritage, of course, but also an act of love, as a lunch between the subjects of the film shows, all sweat, tears of laughter, and enormous rewards."
