The interdisciplinary art platform e-flux has announced the recipients of their 2024 Film Award. The Film Award was established in 2023 as an initiative to recognize the aesthetic and critical potential of moving image art. The selection process is based on an open call, and a short list is decided upon by a jury consisting of distinguished artists, filmmakers and curators. The award is given on an annual basis to three moving image artists, with the winners receiving $2,000, $1,000 and an honorable mention respectively for first, second and third prize.

First prize of the 2024 e-flux Film Award was given to the Palestinian film artist Noor Abed for her film A Night We Held Between (2024). In this work the artist adopts the ancient myth of the Minoan Labyrinth as a narrative vehicle to frame present geopolitical realities, tying together the mythological realm with the current socio-political reality in Palestine. She visits ancient sites, including caves, carved holes, underground passages, and wild valleys, documenting these timeless and forsaken locations and placing the land and landscapes as the main protagonists of the film.

Taiki Sakpisit, The Spirit Level, 2023, 20 minutes. Courtesy of the artist.

Thai film artist Taiki Sakpisit was awarded second prize for his work The Spirit Level (2023), which documents political trauma and violence in Thailand as reflected through the artist's travels through the northeastern regions of the country along the Mekong River. A frantic sequence of a spirit medium in the midst of possession is ensconced at the core of the narrative, with the camera increasingly emulating the medium's trance through the use of double images, until the sequence is abruptly dispersed by a freeze frame. This sudden break in the filmic narrative serves to commemorate the dislocated souls of three political dissidents who were executed by a government death squad after the 2014 coup d’état.

Third prize and honorable mention were handed to Anna Shcherbyna for her film Scales (2024), which follows a woman in her struggle to escape a cycle of traumatic repetitions and follow a path towards happiness. This year was also marked by the establishment of the e-flux Prize for Cinematic Ingenuity, which was awarded to Maryam Tafakory for her film Mast-Del (2023). In 2024 Tafakory also won the prestigious Jarman Award, which is organized by Film London.

The jury for this year's edition of the e-flux Film Award consisted of artist Saodat Ismailova, artist Shana Moulton and theorist and curator Elena Vogman. The award ceremony was held on January 16 at the e-flux Screening Room. The shortlisted films will receive a separate screening on January 25.

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