VICTORIA by Sofie Benoot, Liesbeth De Ceulaer and Isabelle Tollenaere receives this year's Caligari Award.
The jurors Lena Martin, Dagmar Kamlah and Thomas Klein said: "California City, the failed vision of a metropolis from an investor in the 1950s, forms the setting for a new beginning by an Afro-American family resettled from Los Angeles. Taking everyday life and spontaneous experiences as their basis, the filmmakers accompany the young father of the family. A hybrid documentary develops from this with fiction-film elements. Not only does Lashay T. Warren use his smartphone creatively for the relocation, but also enters linguistically into a remarkable dialogue with the absurd place in the desert. By insisting on and communicating from a subjective perspective, VICTORIA poses existential questions about urbanity and precarious living conditions, and creates new hope out of nothingness contrary to all the expectations."