Toprak Wins Best Feature at Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival

Toprak, the story of a Turkish boy who longs to escape his uncle’s rural ways and pursue an education in the city, won best feature at this year’s Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival, where the droll German dramedy Baumbacher Syndrome won the Evolutionary Island Award for the best film shot in Mallorca.

The festival, headed by festival founder and director Sandra Lipski, follows the mantra “Bridging Cultures — Bridging People,” and this year’s event in Mallorca, Spain did exactly that, albeit with masks and social distancing.

Your humble correspondent was honored to serve on the panel that chose Toprak (the word means “soil” in English), the first feature for Sevgi Hirschhäuser, an independent Turkish film director, writer, and editor who is based in Munich, Germany.

Baumbacher Syndrome, the third film from German director Gregory Kirchoff, follows a TV talk show host whose voice suddenly becomes a monstrous baritone.

The winners in the six main categories receive a combined total of 15,000 euros in equipment rentals, including 5,000 euros worth of rentals for the winner of best feature. Submissions for the 10th edition will open Jan. 4 via Filmfreeway.com.

Laura Gost (L) speaking with Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival founder and director Sandra Lipski. Gost, a Goya winner for Best Short Animation Film for Woody & Woody, gave the laudatory speech about Oscar winner Fernando Trueba, who received the Evolution Honorary Award.

“You might think that due to the world pandemic we organized less activities this year, but quite the contrary is true,” Lipski said on closing night. “We organized workshops in collaboration with Actors LAB Mallorca, I AM Actor Mallorca, our own Casting Workshop with Nancy Bishop and for the first time our brand new EMIFF 48HR Film Competition. This edition would not have been possible without our partners: The Official Festival Hotel El Llorenç, Moviescreens rentals and Rialto Living.”

The festival has welcomed an Oscar winner to the festival for each of the past five years. This year’s Oscar-winning guest was Spanish moviemaker Fernando Trueba, who won for Best Foreign Language film for Belle Époque in 1994.

The programming this year was bold and experimental, including films like the slow-burn Greek drama The Waiter, by Steve Krikris, which earned a special mention in the feature film category, and iGilbert, which tests and pleasantly challenges audiences’ sympathies with a story of a man who secretly films women, but ends up doing a very good deed. It’s directed by and stars Adrian Martinez, who earned best actor in a feature film.

The Evolution Mallorca film festival is a regular on MovieMaker’s annual list of 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, which festival goers dub the “Mediterranean Sundance” and which we called “one of the brightest, most cosmopolitan festivals on the planet, and one of the fastest-growing in Europe.”

Here’s the full list of winners:

Best Experimental Short Film