Lorenzo Vecchio Prize

The Jury will award the best short film of the Festival with the Lorenzo Vecchio Prize, which is devoted to the creator and artistic director of Magma who died prematurely in May 2005.
The Prize, which this year amounts to 1000 €, was awarded for the first time in 2005 to Siempre quise trabajar en una fábrica, a short film by the Spanish director Esteban Crespo.

In 2006 the prize went to Éramos Pocos, by the Spanish director Borja Cobeaga, which in January 2007 obtained an Oscar nomination for best narrative short film.

The winner of the Lorenzo Vecchio Prize at Magma 2007 was the German short film Mammal, by Astrid Rieger.

In 2008 the Prize was won by the Indian director Umesh Kulkarni for the documentary “Three of us”.

Mentions

The Jury of Magma will give a special mention to the best short film from each section of the competition, focusing on the narrative, the documentary, the experimental and the animated short films.

Lorenzo Vecchio, born in 1981, moved from Acireale to study cinema in Rome. After returning from an Erasmus project in 2002 he was diagnosed with cancer. A founder member of Scarti, the creator and artistic director of Magma, he passed away in 2005.
Besides some cinema articles for the magazine “Segno”, he published the novel Mia madre non chiude mai (earning him the Vittorini prize for his debut work); posthumously released Un metro lungo cinque and Cinque racconti più uno, all published by the editor Bonanno, and also Vent’anni a Barcellona. His movie productions, including the medium-length film Ballata di un uomo sottile (2001), can be found on the dvd Raccontando storie con la mia videocamera.