The ice builders for Looking Beyond

Francesco Clerici and Tommaso Barbaro’s film wins all the awards of the fifth CAESAR DESIGN FILM AWARD

In the Himalayas, people heavily depend on glaciers, but what happens if climate change disrupts their existence?

The official jury composed of Platform director Simona Finessi, screenwriter Giampiero Rigosi, Bologna University research fellow Elena Vai, architect Gugliemo Renzi and Ceramiche Caesar CEO Adolfo Tancredi awarded the CDFA 2024 prize to the film The Ice Builders. The film was convincing the panel of judges, who decide to assign the prize with the following motivation:

The Ice Builders is an evocative and philosophically profound short film and, among the six finalists, it is certainly the one that most focuses on the theme of the festival: “Design for looking beyond”. The subject is of primary interest on a global level, dealing with the very current issue of climate change. The story, created with excellent quality photography, develops through a montage with an engaging rhythm of words, testimonies, images and reflections, and exposes the problem of drought in the summer months and the solution designed to solve it, which is ingenious and aesthetically fascinating .

The film also won over the jury of Wannabe Designers and the audience, whose votes earned the film two mentions. A film in which the themes of environmental sustainability, design and the centrality of the human being are intertwined in a single fascinating documentary tale made under adverse climatic conditions.

The Wannabe Designers Jury is keen to give particular recognition to the original and current theme, which sees a solution that imitates nature created through simple and analogic methods as an adaptation to the climate crisis. A further note of merit must be attributed to the film production which was able to tell this story with extreme empathy through photography, direction and sound.