"Once More Unto The Breach" wins the EFA Editing Award 2020
This year’s European Film Awards are presented as a series of virtual events. On December 9, first announcement of the Excellence Awards winners 2020, decided by the special eight-members jury (convened online).
The European Editing 2020 Award goes to Maria Fantastica Valmori for Once More Unto The Breach, documentary by Federico Ferrone and Michele Manzolini.
The film is the account of an Italian soldier during the disastrous Italian campaign in Russia in 1941, a work of fiction but made by the directors with documents of disparate origin and both official and amateur archive material, fusing all into a unique subjective point of view and 'voice' of the protagonist, wondering in a steppe populated by presences, memories, horrors merging between past and present.
Maria Fantastica Valmori declares: “I’m very happy for the recognition given to the film, not only to the editing, precisely because it is an innovative and original work as for its creation and the unprecedented use of archive. And, moreover, it gives a precious value to pieces of films attesting a war of the past but narrating a universal and still current story”.
The jury’s motivation:
This documentary is considerably indebted to the editing. It consists almost entirely of grainy black and white archive film and each shot has been chosen with great care. Maria Fantastica Valmori skilfully edits the images of a train travelling across Europe towards the frontline and pictures of comrades-in-arms with scenes of past happiness but also death and destruction in a war-torn Europe. The archive used, no doubt chosen from many hours of material both amateur and professional, is absolutely vital in telling the film's story.
Once More Unto The Breach is produced by Kiné, in association with Istituto Luce Cinecittà, Home Movies - Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia and Rai Cinema, and with the support by Emilia-Romagna Film Commission.
It has already win international awards but, as Ferrone and Manzolini declare: "There can be no higher recognition than a European Editing Award for a so unconventional film on the historic wounds of our continent. This gratifies everyone who worked on this little and strange film".