Winner of the Grand Prix at the Young Talent Critic’s Week of the Cannes International Film Festival, Chauria, a Colombian film by director Andrés Ramírez Pulido, narrates the brutal cycle of violence in the South American country. La Chauria monitors the daily lives of delinquent and criminal children as educator Alvaro tries to give them a second chance through group therapy in an abandoned house in the middle of a tropical jungle. However, the “rehabilitation” of young people in the humid and crowded environment of the Colombian jungle seems more like a prison than an outlet in the future.

Andrés Ramírez Pulido (32) has previously received several awards for his two short films at a number of international festivals. He told AFP in an interview with him in Cannes that he intended “in cinematic language” to “rely heavily on image to emphasize violence.” French Touch was awarded to British director Charlotte Wells in After the Sun for the relationship between her daughter and her father. The Rising Star Award from the Louis Raeder Foundation went to Zelda Samson, the heroine of Emmanuel Nico’s French film Dalva.
João González’s The Ice Traders won the Litz Seinet Short Film Award, and it’s a film without dialogue.