03/04/2017 - Swedish director Tarik Saleh has scooped the Grand Prix at the Beaune International Thriller Film Festival; Arévalo, Sorogoyen, Medina and Ruzowitzky also feature on the winners’ list

(l-r) Award winners Raúl Arévalo, Juan Carlos Medina, Stefan Ruzowitzky and Rodrigo Sorogoyen (© Beaune International Thriller Film Festival)

Chaired by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, the competition jury of the ninth Beaune International Thriller Film Festival has handed the 2017 Grand Prix to The Nile Hilton Incident [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tarik Saleh
film profile] by Swedish director Tarik Saleh, which will be released in France on 12 July by Memento Films Distribution. Having already won at the Sundance Film Festival, the film, the screenplay for which was penned by the director, kicks off in Cairo a few weeks prior to the Egyptian revolution of 2011. A club singer is murdered in a hotel room in the Nile Hilton. Noredin (Fares Fares, popular in films such as the “Department Q” trilogy), a corrupt police inspector, is assigned to investigate the killing. Gradually, he realises that the culprits could be linked to the president’s inner circle. He then decides to switch camps, deliberately taking the side of those whom the regime has left on the sidelines. Produced by Swedish outfit Atmo with Denmark’s Final Cut for Real and Germany’s Ostlicht Filmproduktion, The Nile Hilton Incident boasted cinematography by talented French DoP Pierre Aïm.

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The Jury Prize was split between Cold Hell [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Austria’s Stefan Ruzowitzky and The Fury of a Patient Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Raúl Arévalo
film profile] by Raúl Arévalo (which previously won four Goya Awards, including Best Film, and the Best Actress Award in the Horizons section at Venice and will go on general release in France on 26 April, courtesy of ARP Sélection), which also snagged the Critics’ Prize. 

Spanish filmmakers really flaunted their creativity in the crime-film genre at the event, as the Special Police jury (chaired by former police superintendent and now author Danielle Thiéry) singled out the British production The Limehouse Golem [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by French-Spanish director Juan Carlos Medina, while that of the competitive Fresh Blood parallel section (chaired by Jacques Weber) crowned May God Save Us [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rodrigo Sorogoyen
film profile] by Rodrigo Sorogoyen (Best Screenplay Award at San Sebastián and set to be distributed in France by Le Pacte from 9 August).

Here is the complete list of winners:

Grand Prix
The Nile Hilton Incident [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tarik Saleh
film profile] - Tarik Saleh (Sweden/Denmark/Germany/Morocco)

Jury Prize
Cold Hell [+see also:
trailer
film profile] - Stefan Ruzowitzky (Germany/Austria)
The Fury of a Patient Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Raúl Arévalo
film profile] - Raúl Arévalo (Spain)

Special Police Prize 
The Limehouse Golem [+see also:
trailer
film profile] - Juan Carlos Medina (UK)

Critics’ Prize 
The Fury of a Patient Man - Raúl Arévalo (Spain)

Fresh Blood Prize 
May God Save Us [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rodrigo Sorogoyen
film profile] - Rodrigo Sorogoyen (Spain)

(Translated from French)