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The winners of MOTELX - Lisbon International Horror Film Festival’s three competitions are chosen.

OUR KINGDOM” by Luís Costa is the big winner of the short films categories winning the MOTELX Awards - Best Portuguese Horror Short Film / Méliès d’argent and Méliès d’argent Best European Short Film 2021
“THE FEAST”, by Lee Haven Jones, wins the MOTELX Award - Best European Feature / Méliès d’argent 2021 Carlos Conceição receives Special Mention for “Name Above Title” and the Audience Award goes to “Bloody Oranges”, by Jean-Christophe Meurisse.
 The winners of MOTELX - Lisbon International Horror Film Festival’s three competitions are chosen. The jury was also keen to point out two Special Mentions in a year in which normality was almost felt again with the audience guaranteeing a festival full of sold-out sessions, 25 in total. The 15th edition of MOTELX ends today. For the first time, the MOTELX Award - Best Portuguese Horror Short Film / Méliès d’argent, which is the festival’s most important competition since its main purpose is to promote the production of genre cinema in Portugal, and the Méliès d’argent Best European Short Film 2021 distinguish the same film: “Our Kingdom”, by Luís Costa. The biggest prize awarded in Portugal for short films - with a monetary value of €5,000 and the support of Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa - and the international distinction were decided by a panel of judges composed by the actress Sónia Balacó, the producer Josh Waller and Emily Gotto, vice-president of global acquisitions and co-productions at AMC Networks’ Shudder. “Despite the great quality of the films in competition”, the jury ended up deciding, in the final deliberations, for only one winner, pointing out “his ethereal cinematography, writing and direction that reveal confidence and grace, in what is a journey into the shadows of the childhood and the first encounters with death”. In the international competition, the jury also awarded a Special Mention to “The Thing That Ate The Birds”, by Sophie Mair, Dan Gitsham.

The winner of the MOTELX Award - Best European Feature / Méliès d’argent 2021 was awarded to the film “The Feast”, by Welsh director Lee Haven Jones. The jury composed by the actress and director Ana Moreira, the visual artist Adriana Molder and the director Diego López-Fernández highlighted that this is a “film that catches our attention from its beginning through an impactful image, highlighting the director’s impressive domain of time, that builds an engaging and precise composition through music”. “Bloody Oranges (Oranges Sanguines)”, by Jean-Christophe Meurisse, was the big winner of this edition’s Audience Award.

The jury also decided to award a Special Mention to “Name Above Title”, by Carlos Conceição, the only national feature in the competition, “for its authorial commitment: a film shot without dialogues, in 4:3 format and that reconstructs the slasher genre based on social media”.

“Casa d’Visconde”, by Chila Cunha, won the microCURTAS - a competition that has already become a cult at the festival and that challenges the audience to create small doses of horror through new technologies - and was elected by the members of the Portuguese Cosplay Association, Leonor Grácias, Alexandra Rolo and Eduardo Grácias.

The micro short film “O Título Vem no Fim para Não Estragar a Surpresa”, by Gonçalo Morais Leitão, received a Special Mention.

The 15th edition of MOTELX ends today, September 13, the day on which it will be possible to watch or to rewatch this year’s winning films as well as have the last chance to check out on screen some of the main highlights of the festival, such as “Black Medusa”, by Ismaël and Youssef Chebbi, or “The Sadness”, by Rob Jabbaz. 
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