Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, Locarno 2021

With homages to many cinematic styles and auteurs, Lorenz Merz's Soul of a Beast is a courageous film full of soul, realized through bodies and minds. Taking viewers on a feverish hero's journey through a neighborhood in Zurich, we see the world through the piercing blue eyes of the young man, Gabriel. Caught between the call of the wild, and the will to domestic life, Gabriel leads viewers to see how a person is created in relation to others. Freedom is not "freedom from" but "freedom to."