And the winners of the big prizes at the 63rd Cork Film festival are....

Films about guilt and redemption have taken the honours at this year's Cork Film Festival - with two of them now going on to be longlisted for the Oscars.

Irish short film Stigma has won the prestigious Grand Prix Irish Short Award at the 63rd Cork Film Festival Awards Ceremony this evening.

The film, directed by Helen Warner and produced by Marie McDonald, now joins the longlist for the 2020 Academy Awards in the Live Action Short Film category.

The awards were presented ahead of the Closing Night Gala at the Everyman, with the Irish premiere of Capernaum, directed by Nadine Labaki.

Cork Film Festival Producer and CEO Fiona Clark said: “Stigma is an exceptional short and one that is thoroughly deserving of being longlisted for an Oscar and winner of the €1,500 prize fund. It tells the story of how a string of confessions unveil a tale of religious guilt, sin and redemption and possesses a storytelling and visual sophistication that left a distinct impression on the jury.”

The Festival’s second Academy Awards qualifying award, for the Grand Prix International Short Award, was Maria Eriksson’s Schoolyard Blues (Skolstartssorg) a Swedish short film which the judges recognised as being “both uplifting and heart-breaking and prompts us to consider...the enduring and potentially restorative power of love”.

The Audience Award, presented by The River Lee, Principal Accommodation Partner, was won by Float Like a Butterfly, written and directed by Carmel Winters, which was the Opening Night Gala film and European Premiere.

Winters said: “Winning the audience prize at the oldest and largest festival in Ireland is the greatest gift I could wish for. So many of us bared heart and soul to make this film. Thank you, thank you, thank you Cork for championing the right of all of us to be our truest and best selves."

List of winners:

• Stigma, directed by Helen Warner — Grand Prix Irish Short Award, Proudly presented by RTÉ Supporting the Arts
• Schoolyard Blues (Skolstartssorg), directed by Maria Eriksson — Grand Prix International Short Award
• Float Like a Butterfly, written and directed by Carmel Winters — Audience Award, Presented by The River Lee
• Border (Grans) , directed by Ali Abbasi — Gradam Spiorad na Féile (Spirit of the Festival Award), Presented by The Gate Cinema
• Black Sheep, directed by Ed Perkins — Cork Film Festival Candidate for the European Film Awards 2019
• Black Line, directed by Mark Olexa and Francesca Scalisi — Documentary Short Award
• The Shift, directed by Megan K Fox — Best Cork Short Award, Presented by Red FM
• Oonagh Kearney (Five Letters To The Stranger Who Will Dissect My Brain) — Best Director: Irish Short, Supported by Screen Directors Guild Ireland
• Hale County This Morning, This Evening, directed by RaMell Ross — Gradam na Féile do Scannáin Faisnéise (Award for Cinematic Documentary)
• Crystal Swan (Khrustal), directed by Darya Zhuk — Cork Film Festival Youth Jury Award

- Digital desk