The Prix Jean Vigo is an award in the Cinema of France given annually since 1951 to a French film director in homage to Jean Vigo. It was founded by French writer Claude Aveline.[1]
This award is usually given to a young director, for his or her independent spirit.
The Spanish documentary film Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival 1 presents, for the first time in Spain, the Premio Jean Vigo al mejor director (Jean Vigo Prize to the best director).
The new award aims to strengthen both the spirit which inspired the festival in the first place and its commitment to the work of Jean Vigo. The creation of this prize has been made possible thanks to the close ties between Punto de Vista and the family of the great French filmmaker.
Punto de Vista paid tribute to the director of Zero de Conduite on the centenary of his birth in 2005. Luce Vigo, film critic and daughter of Vigo and Elizabeth Lozinska, attended that year. The festival provided an opportunity to look back on Vigo’s entire filmography and also represented the first step in a relationship which has now fructified in the form of this award. The Festival took its name, Punto de Vista (Point of View), as a tribute to Vigo, the first director to refer, back in the 30’s, to a “documented point of view” as a distinctive sign of a form of filmmaking which commits the filmmaker.