Photo: Andrejs Strokins
The AVEK Award presented by the Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture AVEK is the most significant media art recognition in Finland. The annual award is worth EUR 15,000. This year, the internationally renowned film programmer, critic and producer Paolo Bertolin will select the winner. In previous years, a jury of Finnish experts has selected the award winner.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has reduced artists’ opportunities to travel and meet programmers on different international festivals. We want to offer a group of excellent Finnish artists an opportunity to get international exposure,” says Ulla Simonen, Director of AVEK.
Bertolin will select the winner from a shortlist that AVEK compiles. The list, compiled according to suggestions by experts, contains artists whom AVEK supports.
“Being a one-person-jury for the AVEK Award is a great honor and privilege. I am very excited to discover the nominees and their works and to know more of Finnish media art,” says Bertolin.
At the moment, Bertolin works as a member of the programming team at the Venice Film Festival. He has extensive experience as a film producer, critic and journalist as well as in international film festivals. He has worked in the programme selection committee of the Cannes Film Festival’s Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight.
The AVEK Award can be granted to a creator or group that works in media arts or other audiovisual culture. Previous winners of the award include artist Jenna Sutela (2020), visual artist Anna Estarriola (2015), visual artist Jani Ruscica (2010) and artist Adel Abidin (2007). The winner of the next award will be announced on the 30th of September 2021.
Paolo Bertolin is a film programmer, critic and producer and a member of the selection committee of Venice Film Festival since 2008. In 2019 and 2020, he was part of the selection committee of Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight. Since 2016, he is the Artistic Consultant of Locarno Open Doors. He has worked for several other festivals and institutions, including IFFRotterdam and the Doha Film Institute.
As a film critic and journalist, Bertolin wrote articles for Italian and international publications, such as Cahiers du cinéma. As producer he is credited for such films as Phan Dang Di’s Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories, Lav Diaz’s A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery and Amit Dutta’s Chitrashala, all entries in the Berlinale Competition. Bertolin is a member of the European Film Academy and of the Asia Pacific Screen Awards Academy.
