Best feature
The $1500 prize for best feature goes to Anita (Argentina, 2009, Marcos Carnevale) – the odyssey of a young woman with Down Syndrome, lost and friendless in Buenos Aires after a terrorist attack tears her neighborhood apart. This film stole the audience’s hearts in Sydney as it has done in many other festivals around the world. 50% of the money raised by this screening has been pledged to the Down Syndrome Association of Argentina and Down Syndrome New South Wales as part of the festival’s community support program.
Film synopsis
Anita lives with her mother in the heart of Buenos Aires’ Jewish neighbourhood. On 18 July 1994, she helps her mother open the family store holding the fort while her mother runs out on a quick errand to the local Jewish mutual
society. Suddenly Anita’s live is thrown into turmoil by an event she does not understand. Her bewilderment as she wanders, disoriented, from one end of her city to another, mirrors the incomprehension we all feel in the face of violence and a changed world.
