We present the winners of the 13th Green Film Festival in Seoul that took place from May 6th until the 12th in South Korea.

Green Competition
Best Feature Film

How to Change the World by Jerry Rothwell – UK, Netherlands | 2015 – 109 min.

In 1971, a group of friends sail into a nuclear test zone and their protest captures the world’s imagination, giving birth to Greenpeace and defining the modern green movement. Media savvy from the beginning, these pioneers captured their seat-of- their pants activist adventures on 16mm film. This insightful film is a vibrant, moving reflection on the struggle to balance the political and the personal.

Best Short Film

Defendant 5 by Heidi Lee Douglas – Australia | 2014 – 30 min.

Young filmmaker Heidi Lee DOUGLAS goes to Tasmania to make a documentary about the destruction of the island’s ancient forests. As anti-logging protests escalate, logging giant Gunns Ltd reacts to public pressure by suing Heidi and 19 others for $6.4 million for allegedly conspiring to destroy the company’s business. Her response is to turn the camera on herself to document her personal struggle as she goes into battle against a corporation out of control.

Special Jury Award

Behemoth by Zhao Liang – China, France | 2015 – 91 min.

In the Old Testament, the mountains are the domain of a monster named Behemoth; in modern times the vast mining industry has taken the monster’s place. With a violent roar, the mountain spews iron ore and coal with infernal billowing smoke that leaves those working there struggling against fatigue and suffocation. The silence of the dreamlike Chinese landscapes is broken only by the thundering cacophony of explosions set to create a new entrance to the mine. The iron ore wheezes and cracks as it’s transformed into steel; growling trucks enveloped in black clouds carry their loads to and fro. The sheep farmers and their herds have been driven off the bright green pastures to make way for the ever-expanding mining industry; sick miners with ruined lungs are lying, dying, in the hospital. The “monster’s minions” have transformed a mountain paradise into an industrial zone surrounded by ghost towns of brand-new, deserted apartment blocks.

Audience Award

How to Change the World by Jerry Rothwell – UK, Netherlands | 2015 – 109 min.

Korean Green Competition
Grand Prize

Still and All by Kim Youngjo – South Korea | 2015 – 92 min.
Yeongdo Bridge has opened up again after 47 years, placing the Yeongdo Island at the center of change and revitalization. However, there are some people living underneath the bridge with the hope that things would just stay the same. Among them, there are a temporarily employed welder for decades in the shipyard that is going to close down, an old crippled lady living with her old dog, an old deaf female diver who collects shells and seaweed for a living, and the only and last two grandma fortune tellers who still remain without visitors in Yeongdo, once the street full of fortune tellers and their numerous customers. Regardless of their hope, they all are driven to move out by the city government planning to make the island into a tourist attraction by reconstructing it. Still and all, they do not want to leave their lifelong homes despite all the pressure on them from the city government…

Excellence Prize

The Nuclear Mafia by Kim Hwan-tae – South Korea | 2016 – 115 min.

Special Audience Jury Award

Still and All by Kim Youngjo – South Korea | 2015 – 92 min.

Special Mention

Dearest, Hanok Village by Kim Jungin – South Korea | 2016 – 92 min.