12/07/2012 - Franco-Senegalese film The Pirogue wanders ahead of the other winners at the great Bavarian event.

The 30th Munich International Film Festival (June 29 - July 7), for the first time directed by Diane Iljine (read more), chose its winners last weekend, and awarded its prestigious ARRI Award for Best Foreign Film (that comes with €30,000, last year awarded to Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aki Kaurismäki
film profile]) to French co-production The Pirogue [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Senegalese director Moussa Touré, a film that was also greatly applauded at Un Certain Regard in Cannes this year.

The CineVision Award for best international new film director (€12,000), for his or her first or second film, donated for the first time by the distributor Senator Film, was awarded to Swiss-Argentinian co-production Back to Stay [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Milagros Mumenthaler
film profile] by Milagros Mumenthaler. A special mention went to Polish film It Looks Pretty From A Distance by Anka et Wilhelm Sasnal.

In the German Cinema New Talent section, no less than €70,000 were shared out among the best new local talents in the categories of Best New Director, Best New Producer, Best New Screenwriter, and Best Actor or Actress. The two first awards, worth €30,000 and €20,000, went to female director Hanna Doose and her producers David Keitsch and Ben von Dobeneck for Dust On Our Hearts. The German Cinema New Talent Award for Best Screenwriter (€10,000) went to writer and director Jan Ole Gerster for Oh Boy, and Best New Actor (€10,000) went to the actress Antonia Putiloff for her performance in Christian Klandt's Little Thirteen. The jury gave a special mention to female director Michaela Kezele for My Beautiful Country [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a film that she shot in Serbian and Albanian.

To see the complete list of winners at the Munich Film Festival, please check the festival's website.

(Translated from French)