50th Thessaloniki International Film Festival Award Winners

Recently the fest closed and here are the winners.

Golden Alexander for Best Film: Ajami, Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani, Israel and Germany

Silver Alexander – Special Jury Award: Medalia de ONoare (Medal of Honor), Calin Netzer, Romania and Germany (Great a new Romanian movie!)
Best Director: Rigoberto Perezcano for Norteado (Northless), Mexico and Spain
Best Actress: Ruth Nirere in Le jour où Dieu est parti en voyage (The Day God Walked Away), Philippe van Leeuw, France
Best Actor: Victor Rebengiuc in Medalia de ONoare (Medal of Honor), Calin Netzer, Romania and Germany

FIPRESCI Award: Medalia de ONoare (Medal of Honor), Calin Netzer, Romania and Germany
Human Values Award: Lebanon, Samuel Maoz, Israel, France and Germany
Cinema and The City Award: La Sangre y la Lluvia (Blood and Rain), Jorge Navas, Colombia and Argentina

To check the awards in all the categories please go here.

50th Thessaloniki International Film Festival Line Up - Update

Today, November 18, the news are out with more than 200 directors, producers and screenwriters withdrew 52 films from the fest. The official site does not have the news, but if you wish to learn more, please go Variety. Not good news for the fest but filmmakers in Greece want to change an older cinema law.

I'll be checking if any of the films in the Official Competition were withdraw and post accordingly.

--end of update--

Yesterday the other TIFF that I always check opened with the screening of Faith Akin’s Soul Kitchen out of competition. The fest will run until November 22 and these are the films in the International Competition.

International Competition

Apafold (Father's Acre), Viktor Oszkar Nagy, Hungary, 2009
Ajami, Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani, Israel, Germany, 2009
Bakal Boys (Children Metal Divers), Ralston Jover, Philippines, 2009
Dancing on Ice, Stavros Ioannou, Greece, 2009
El Ultimo Verano De La Boyita (The Last Summer Of La Boyita), Julia Solomonoff, Argentina, Spain, and France, 2009
Es Kommt Der Tag (The Day Will Come), Susanne Schneider, Germany and France, 2009
Heliopolis, Ahmad Abdalla, Egypt, 2009
La Sangre Y La Lluvia (Blood And Rain), Jorge Navas, Colombia and Argentina, 2009
Le Jour Ou Dieu Est Parti En Voyage (The Day God Walked Away), Philippe Van Leeuw, Belgium and France, 2009
Medalia De Onoare (Medal Of Honor) Calin Netzer, Romania, 2009
Norteado (Northless), Rigoberto Perezcano, Mexico and Spain, 2009
Sarameul Chatseumnida (Missing Person), Seo Lee, Korea, 2009
Small Revolts, Kyriakos Katzourakis, Greece, 2009
St. Nick, David Lowery, USA, 2009
The Unloved, Samantha Morton, United Kingdom, 2009

Out of Competition
J' Ai Tue Ma Mere (I Killed My Mother), Xavier Dolan, Canada, 2009
La Teta Asustada (Milk Of Sorrow), Claudia Llosa, Spain, and Peru, 2009
Nord (North), Rune Denstad Langlo, Norway, 2009, 78’

There is a Werner Herzog Retrospective with many of his films, if not all; a Tribute to Jeremy Thomas and interesting sections like Philippines Rising, Independence Days, Pink Eiga, Balkan Survey and others that you can check here.

In the year of its golden anniversary the fest was inspired by the words of Jean Renoir "In order to stay alive cinema will have to invent everything from scratch," organizers hope that the festival will be an occasion for dialogue and a redefinition of cinema, during the screenings of dozens of films from around the world and open discussions with famous guests. Hmm… let’s hope something interesting comes out from such an important issue in cinema as we know that cinema has to reinvent itself periodically to keep alive its raison d’être.

Eden à l'ouest (Eden is West)

Costa-Gavras films are always must-be-seen for me even when most are truly hard-to-watch. My surprise is to find that this movie -that has a very difficult theme: illegal immigration- is light and quite playful making it perhaps the easiest to watch Costa-Gavras film I have ever seen. But within all the lightness and playfulness we are exposed to a series of situations that immigrants have to suffer when illegally entering any European country.

Tells the story of Elias (Riccardo Scamarcio) that jumps a ship full of illegal immigrants because police is coming, evades police to wake up next morning at a nudist beach in a plush hotel that I assume is in France. In the hotel manages to continue evading police by passing as a hotel clerk, a customer, a magician aid, and the boyfriend of a German tourist played by Juliane Köhler that many blog readers will recognize from great Aimee and Jaguar. This part of the story includes sexual advances by the hotel director (Eric Caravaca) and watching how hotel guests willingly help to find other illegal immigrants that jumped the ship, plus tourist attitudes when bodies started to appear dead at the beach. As Elias is able to leave a hotel following an invitation from the magician to see him in Paris, he will find people that will help him and who will exploit him. The rest you have to see it as the end of the film is bittersweet for the character (and us viewers) but it’s done with a touch of magic that says much about the entire film.

The film has excellent tempo that makes it feel like a thriller and you really want to know what will happen to Elias next. Lightness, playfulness and thriller are words not often used to describe a good movie and obviously the Costa-Gavras skillful abilities are what make this movie great to watch, while “reviewing” and seeing scenes from a very difficult theme like immigration. This is amazing.

But more amazing is to find what Costa-Gavras says about the film:
"que le film soit un hommage à nos pères, nos grands-pères et à ceux de notre génération qui sont venus en France malgré les embûches et les tempêtes". Le cinéaste précise tout de même qu'il n'a pas réalisé une autobiographie même si "ce film est sans doute mon film le plus personnel."

By the way, do not try to understand the language that Elias and his fellow immigrants speak, it was invented by Costa-Gavras and Jean-Claude Grumberg who co wrote the script with him. The only reason: didn’t want viewers to identify a nationality to the lead character.

Excellent production values with special mention to the beautiful cinematography in many scenes with dramatic nature takes and the great performance by Italian Riccardo Scamarcio that is truly believable as the good looking childish, naïve and very fast runner always flying away from police.

The film was screened out of competition at the 2009 Berlinale where was the closing film. I never thought that I will recommend a Costa-Gavras film for being entertaining! Yes, the film is very entertaining and I strongly recommend it to those that can’t miss a Costa-Gavras film and to those that have never seen any of his movies, this is the one to watch; but be aware that his other films are not like this one.

Enjoy!!!

Watch trailer @ Movie On Companion