The 2023 winner was American screenwriter Nick Pinkerton for ›The Sweet East‹ by director Sean Price Williams. The jury thus honored "a shape-shifting, endlessly surprising odyssey where you never know what's coming next". [...] "A unique story that explores a whole range of milieus in contemporary America, unflinchingly, with rare audacity and a generous dose of pitch-black humor," reads the jury's statement.
The Sweet East
honoured with the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Award 2023
THE SWEET EAST
Alice in Wonderland, USA! A boring class trip turns into an unexpectedly wild journey in this very contemporary and playful film, which traverses the abysses of US society.
Lillian is on a school trip to the nation’s capital. Once there, the traumatised young woman soon runs away from the group and gets swept up in her very own wild journey. Told with a light touch, in grainy images and a mischievous tone, this playful film accompanies its heroine as she encounters representatives of various subcultures. As dangerous as some of these might be, Lillian appears childishly uninvolved by it all. Eventually, it becomes difficult to imagine whether and how – and with what kind of identity – she will manage to untangle herself from the twists and turns of this picaresque adventure. The only certainty is that the audience is in for a feverish treat. A film at once fairy tale-like and highly contemporary. The director and his screenwriter portray the mental, social and political disintegration of their home country, the USA, offering a clear-sighted vision of its chaos.
Countries: Tunisia, France
2021 | 92 min | Arabic
Subtitles: German, English
Starring_ Fatma Oussaifi, Mohamed Houcine Grayaa, Rami Harrabi Screenplay_ Youssef Chebbi, François-Michel Allegrini Producer_ Farès Ladjimi Cinematography_ Hazem Berrabah Rights_The Party Film Sales