Areas of Search was first exhibited in an installation at the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, Sheffield Cathedral (October 2024), as part of the art strand of the No Bounds Festival. This strand was curated and produced by Amy Carter-Gordon. In 2025, the film was screened and awarded at the Asolo Art Film Festival in Italy.
“I am deeply honoured and humbled to receive the Best Video Art Award at the Asolo Art Film Festival in Italy—one of the world’s oldest and most respected festivals dedicated to art and cinema and a detachment from Venice Biennale. This recognition echoes far beyond me. To have my work recognised by an organisation that has awarded artists such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Aleksandr Sokurov, and Ingrid Bergman is both surreal and profoundly meaningful. My short film Areas of Search confronts femicide—a subject that carries unbearable weight, urgency, and silence. I accept this award with profound gratitude to the jury and especially in solidarity with the Mexican women who have shared their stories and experiences in the brutality of femicide. This work belongs to them. Thank you to the festival for seeing the value in art as a tool for witnessing, remembrance, and resistance. May this recognition not only honour artistic vision, but also amplify the voices that are too often unheard.”
“In Helen Blejerman’s work, Areas of Search, images (from Google Earth) of a Mexico seemingly emptied of human presence flow like a visual carpet, forming the backdrop to the voice (the artist herself) of a soul searching for its remains, thus representing a doubly unreal world. The estrangement is heightened by the water flowing backwards, almost expressing a longing to return to time, to life. The theme of loss, both personal and collective, permeates the work, as does the gaze upon the landscape. For these reasons and the lyricism of its composition, it was awarded the prize for the best video artwork.” Enrico Tomaselli, member of the jury—from the Festival’s catalogue.
Thank you to these Italian publications for writing about the films awarded at the Asolo Art Film Festival: Cinema Italiano, Treviso Today, Sipario, and Federazione Relazioni Pubbliche Italiana.
Helen Blejerman 