30/11/2009

Italian/Austrian co-production La Pivellina [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] picked up the top prize, the Principality of Asturias Award for Best Feature, at the 47th Gijón International Film Festival.

Co-directed by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, the film won over the international jury (composed of Lenny Abrahamson, Kiko Amat, Christine Dollhofer, Andrés Gertrudix and Lucía Puenzo), who praised “its unique celebration of everyday happiness and its intimate, tender and emotionally honest perspective”.

Moreover, La Pivellina nabbed Best Actress Award (for Patrizia Gerardi), for the “detailed construction of a touching character, full of conviction and an infinite complicity with the camera”.

Many more European productions took home prizes from Gijón. Philippe Lioret’s Welcome [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
interview: Philippe Lioret
film profile] (LUX Prize 2009) won two accolades: Best Screenplay (for succeeding, “without solemnity or dogmatism, in making viewers experience for themselves one of the many dramas of immigration”) and the Youth Jury Award for Best Film.

Meanwhile, the Special Jury Prize went to Alain Guiraudie’s The King of Escape [+see also:
trailer
film profile], described by the international jury as “an explosive and crazy feast which irreverently explores all that is important”.

The only Spanish representative in official competition, Álvaro Brechner’s Bad Day To Go Fishing [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see news), didn’t go away empty-handed either, as the jury presented art director Gustavo Ramírez with the Gil Parrondo Award.

Bobby Paunescu’s controversial Romanian production Francesca [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] scooped the FIPRESCI Critics’ Prize.

Finally, two Dutch co-productions were also among the prize-winners: Harutyun Khachatryan’s Border (co-produced with Armenia) won Best Documentary, while Timur Ismailov’s Bingo took top honours in the shorts section.

(Translated from Spanish)