Lithuanian Film ‘Toxic’ Spreads Wings with a Golden Peacock at IFFI 2024

Goa Khabar:The most awaited announcement of the 55^th International Film Festival of India, Goa has been made – Lithuanian film ‘Toxic’ has bagged the prestigious Golden Peacock Award for the Best Feature Film at IFFI 2024.

Director, Saulė Bliuvaitė received the Golden Peacock Trophy, a certificate, and a cash prize of Rs. 40,00,000, shared with the producer, Giedre Burokaite.

The Jury praised the film for its deep sensitivity and empathy, with its coming-of-age narrative set against a stark physical and social backdrop.

Toxic emerged as the best film, “for exploring adolescence and the harsh realities of growing up in an economically deprived society, with so much sensitivity and empathy and at the same time creating a coming-of-age narrative against a backdrop of the physical and social landscape,” the Jury cited.

An aptly titled coming-of-age tale set amidst contaminated physical and social landscapes, Toxic has at its centre an exploration of the human body in all its frailty and glory.

The film tells the story of thirteen-year-old Marija who faces trouble fitting into the industrial town where she lives with her grandmother. She begins to form a tentative and volatile bond with rebellious peer, Kristina, and the two enroll in a local modelling school that promises its pupils the chance of a glamorous life far away from their bleak and isolated existence. But the financial and physical demands of the school force them to come up with increasingly extreme and dangerous ways to conform their young bodies to impossible standards of beauty.

For their extra ordinary performances in the same film, the Best Actor (Female) award was jointly given to Vesta Matulytė and Ieva Rupeikaitė “For the extraordinary performances by its two debut making actresses – Vesta Matulyte and Ieva Rupeikaitė – who pushed themselves to their physical and emotional limits in creating the unforgettable characters of Marija and Kristina,” the Jury cited.