Balcony, the Iris Prize Winner of the Cardiff-based international LGBTQ short film festival, is a confounding 17-minute drama set in an estate of high rise flats and features two girls in a hostile environment. Tina is a lonely teenager who finds herself drawn to Dana, from Afghanistan, who lives with her father and does not mix with the rest of the kids.
“The problem about being surrounded by bad things is you get the urge to destroy anything good,” Tina shares with the viewer after we see her take a photo with Dana.
The film is seen through Tina’s eyes and imagination. The viewer’s assumptions about Dana, who wears a headscarf and Tina, the tough teenager, are questioned. “People seem like they care but really, there’s way more to it than that,” Tina says, as we learn more about her abusive home life.
Toby Holden-Fell’s film questions stereotypes about immigrants and the choice of Dana as an Afghani opens up wider issues of Britain’s relationship with Afghanistan. “You’d think people’d want the truth when, really, they just want to hear whatever’ll make them feel better,” Tina says at the dramatic end.
Iris Prize jury chair Cheryl Dunye commented, “We felt that the director crafted a powerful film where not a single moment of its 17 minutes was wasted. The lead performance by Charlotte Beaumont was particularly outstanding as she took us on an internal transformation that left us speechless.”
Other winners on the night included Real Boy, a documentary by Shaleece Haas, which picked up the Best Feature Award, and Sign, selected by members of Pride Cymru’s Youth Council for the Iris Youth Prize Award.
Further information
Balcony is currently available to view with a TV licence on BBC IPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b082rtyw/iris-prize-winning-film-2016-balcony
Montage of the films that competed for the £30,000 10th Iris Prize, 2016 – https://www.youtube.com/user/johnberwyn
Film Doo interview with director, Toby Fell-Holden:
https://www.filmdoo.com/blog/2016/06/28/interview-toby-fell-holden-on-balcony/
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