(SIGNIS / INTERFILM). The Ecumenical Jury at the 74th Locarno Film Festival awarded their Prize to the film Soul of a Beast directed by Lorenz Merz (Switzerland, 2021).
With homages to many cinematic styles and auteurs, Lorenz Merz’s Soul of a Beast is a courageous film full of soul, realized through bodies and minds. Taking viewers on a feverish hero’s journey through a neighbourhood in Zurich, we see the world through the piercing blue eyes of the young man, Gabriel. Caught between the call of the wild, and the will to domestic life, Gabriel leads viewers to see how a person is created in relation to others. Freedom is not “freedom from” but “freedom to.”
The members of the Ecumenical Jury, appointed by SIGNIS and INTERFILM, were Anne Le Cor (France), Pascale Huber (Switzerland), Eva Meienberg (Switzerland), and S. Brent Rodríguez-Plate (USA, President).
