LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 07
August 16th 2007 06:47
It wasn’t just Cannes celebrating a milestone of festival activity this year as the Locarno International Film Festival hit the big 60 as well with the final night awards ceremony at the Piazza Grande last Saturday night August 11 bring to a close 10 days of international competition with young talented auteurs rubbing shoulders with their more established and well known directors.
A jury of six consisting of Walter Carvalho (Brazil), Saverio Costanzo (Italy), Irene Jacob (France), Romuald Karmakar (Germany), Jia Zhang-Ke (China), Bruno Todeschini ( Switz/ France) then had the job of choosing the 20 fiction features from a wide variety of styles and formats submitted from all corners of the globe, before one standout was finally awarded the Golden Leopard, the Swiss equivalent of the Palme d’Or.
The 2007 Locarno Excellence Award, created in 2004 to honour actors or actresses who ‘through their work and talent, have enriched the cinema with their unique contribution’ was this year awarded to the Spanish actress Carmen Maura and the French actor Michel Piccoli joining Oleg Menchikov, Susan Sarandon, John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe as the recipients of this prestigious award.
Artistic Director Frederic Maire spoke the success of the festival with audience numbers again topping the 180,000 mark. Even with the audience numbers down slightly on last years event, the number of entries were once again up on previous years making the jury’s decision even tougher than before. And it looks like there was an award for everyone with even the Swiss Evangelical and Roman Catholic churches getting in on the act presenting the princely sum of 20000 Swiss francs for distribution of a local film. I bet you’ll never see that at the Academy Awards. Along with the following awards there were numerous special mentions for varying films along the way.
AWARDS:
International Competition
Golden Leopard - AI NO YOKAN (THE REBIRTH) by Masahiro Kobayashi , Japan
Special Jury Prize - MEMORIES by Pedro Costa, Harun Farockis, Eugène Green, South Korea
Best Director - Philippe Ramos for CAPITAINE ACHAB, France / Sweden
Leopard for Best Actress - Marian Alvares in LO MEJOR DE MI, Spain
Leopard for Best Actor - Michel Piccoli in SOUS LES TOITS DE PARIS by Hiner Saleem (France) and Michele Venitucci in FUORI DALLE CORDE by Fulvio Bernasconi (Switzerland / Italy)
C.P. Company Golden Leopard/Filmmakers of the Present Competition
TEJUT (Milky Way) by Benedek Fliegauf, Hungary / Germany
Ciné Cinéma Special Jury Prize / Filmmakers of the Present Competi tionIMATRA by Corso Salani, Italy
Best First Feature - TAGLIARE LE PARTI IN GRIGIO by Vittorio Rifranti, Italie
Leopards of TomorrowInternational Competition
Golden Leopard
VALURI (Waves) by Adrian Sitaru, Romania
Silver Leopard
BENDE SIRA (Ich bin dran) by Ismet Erguen, Germany / Turkey
Swiss National CompetitionGolden Leopard
RENÉ by Tobias Nölle, Switzerland
Silver Leopard
LATITUDE 2023 by Florence Guillermin, Switzerland
Best Swiss Newcomer
ICEBERGS de Germinal Roaux, Switzerland
Film and Video Subtitling Prize
IL NEIGE A MARRAKECH by Hicham Alhayat, Switzerland
Leopards of Tomorrowshared between a film of Swiss Competition and International Competition :
HOY NO ESTOY by Gustavo Taretto, Argentina
MÉNAGERIE INTÉRIEURE by Nadège de Benoit Luthy, Switzerland
The winner of the audience prize - DEATH AT A FUNERAL by Frank Oz, USA / Great-Britain
Youth Jury PrizeFirst Prize - Anthony Hopkins for SLIPSTREAM, United-States
Second Prize - Peter Payer for FREIGESPROCHEN , Austria / Luxembourg
Third Prize - Amor Hakkar for LA MAISON JAUNE by, France / Algeria
The environment is the quality of life prize - Claudio Del Punta for HAÏTI CHÉRIE, Italy
Netpac Prize(Network for Asian Cinema)LITTLE MOTH by Tao Peng, China and
AN SEH (THOSE THREE) by Naghi Nemati, Iran
FIPRESCI Prize(Internation Federation of Cinematographic Press)
CAPITAIN ACHAB by Philippe Ramos, France / Sweden
Oecumenical Jury PrizeLA MAISON JAUNE by Amor Hakkar, Algeria / France
FICC / IFFS Prize(International Cine-Club Federation)
LA MAISON JAUNE by Amor Hakkar, Algeria / France
CICAE Prize (International Art & Essay Cinema Confederation)
LADRONES by Jaime Marques, Spain
Critic’s Prize - ALLEIN IN VIER WÄNDEN by Alexandra Westmeier, Germany
Daniel Schmidt Prize(dedicated to the memory of Daniel Schmidt)
AI NO YOKAN (The Rebirth) by Masahiro Kobayashi, Japan
Credit must be given to the official website www.pardo.ch for all source
material included in this blog.
SJC
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