Best Short Documentary 2024 Winner

A full life, I suppose.

A full life, I suppose is a filmic portrait of the time shared between the filmmaker and his mother, Androulla, combining new 16mm material shot during his recurring visits to Cyprus with Super 8mm footage shot by his father in the 1970s to chronicle the evolution of bodies and the desires that mark a life. Attempting to balance between observation and construction, the film captures dailiness and domesticity while transfiguring Androulla’s body and inhabited space through close-ups, double exposures and time-lapses. As segments of conversations between filmmaker and mother about her life wander mostly sync-free over the images, encounters with light and darkness in the nooks and furnishings of her otherwise ordinary dwelling arouse a sense of unreality. JURY STATEMENT: Out of the three short documentaries nominated as ‘Best Short Documentary’, which all framed important topics and stories, I chose ‘A full life, I suppose’ due to its search for a different narrative form and and visuality to express the story, feelings, memories, time shared between the director and his mother. Although the film plays with everyday atmosphere and trivialities, which might not seem important at first glance, there is a deeper universal urge to capture the existential space between son and mother that connects and divides the two of them, and to capture how life is lived and passed on.