Page - 129 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/02

128 | Dietmar Adler and Charles Martig www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/2, 127–131 editing. Thus, Wang dreams that Lok will investigate his murder. The Ecumeni- cal Jury recorded, “This is the pretext for a reflection on the meaning of bor- ders, national sovereignty and economic exploitation in a globalized world, as well as on the real possibility of solidarity between people from different places and cultures.”1 Yeo Siew Hua’s victory at the festival was perhaps surprising for some, but if we look back at earlier years of the festival we see that Asian cin- ema has always been very strong in the competition. YOUNG WOMEN AS THE FOCAL POINT OF THE FESTIVAL The international competition included great portraits of women. Five of the 15 films have a female first name as their title. Carlo Chatrian, who was artis- tic director of the Locarno Film Festival until 2018 and has now taken up that role for the Berlinale, was asked during a conversation with the Ecumenical Jury whether the film selection followed programmatic guidelines concerning gender equality. He responded that this was simply how it had turned out: the program was developed gradually, and the main criterion was always the qual- ity of the film. Sibel, by the Turkish-French directors Çağla Zencirci and Guillaume Giova- netti, the winner of the Ecumenical Jury Prize, was also awarded the prizes of the International Federation of Film Critics Fipresci and the Youth Jury. Sibel (Damla Sönmez) is in her mid-twenties. She lives in a village in the Turkish Black Sea region, a mountainous, green area where the people grow tea. Sibel does not speak, but she is not deaf. She communicates with the help of a whistling language that has been used in the valleys of this region. Sibel is different, and she is marginalized in the village because of her impairment. But because Sibel is different, she also has more freedom than other young women in the village. Sibel spends a lot of time in the woods, looking for a mysterious wolf. There she meets Ali, who is hiding in the woods. At first they fight, but later, when Ali looks at Sibel, she is transforms from an “it” into a woman. Conflicts in her family and the village follow, but Sibel has changed. She raises her gaze, is self- confident, emancipated, and able to empower other women. Another portrait of a female adolescent, Yara (Abbas Fahdel, LB/IQ/FR 2018) takes place in the beautiful, almost paradisiacal mountains of northern Leba- non, quite different from the images of the country we see in the news. Yara (Michelle Wehbe) is a young girl who lives with her grandmother somewhere between heaven and earth. She meets Elias, and a carefree, almost shy love sto- 1 Statement of the Ecumenical Jury; for the English text see https://www.inter-film.org/auszeichnun- gen/18181818/commendation-ecumenical-jury-locarno-2018 [accessed 14 August 2018] and for the German see https://www.inter-film.org/de/auszeichnungen/18181818/lobende-erwaehnung-der- oekumenischen-jury-locarno-2018 [accessed 14 August 2018].