"Insects" Wins European Film Academy's Doc Prize

A scene from Peter Liechti's "The Sound of Insects - Record of a Mummy." Image courtesy of EFA.

The European Film Academy has announced that Peter Liechti's "The Sound of Insects - Record of a Mummy" has been awarded the European Film Awards' "Prix Arte" for best documentary. The Swiss film beat out Agnes Varda's "The Beaches of Agnes," Anders Ostergaard's "Burma VJ," and Yoav Shamir's "Defamation," among others. The award chosen by an independent jury, whose members this year were documentary filmmaker Nino Kirtadzé from France/Georgia, Austrian producer and ORF editor Franz Grabner and Russian documentary filmmaker Viktor Kossakovsky.

"Insects" hunter evokes a mysterious man's last days. In a remote forest, the film stumbles on a make shift tent fashioned from sheets of plastic and containing the mummified remains of a corpse. A detailed journal found on site reveals the man committed suicide by self-imposed starvation. Who was this man? Why did he kill himself in such a manner?

The jury said the film was honored with the prize "for its skillful exploration of minimalist means to create an extraordinary visual story between life and death."

The winner will be presented at the 22nd European Film Awards Ceremony on Saturday, 12 December, in Bochum/Germany.

Get the latest from this year's award season at indieWIRE's new awards section.