18/08/2009

A German film had already scored success ahead of the awards ceremony at the 62nd Locarno International Film Festival on Saturday evening: Pianomania by Robert Cibis and Lilian Franck was named Best Film of the Critics' Week that afternoon. The entertaining documentary about a passionate piano-tuner had been enthusiastically received on its premiere in the sold-out Kursaal. The film was produced in Germany by Oval Film (Berlin).

The prizes kept coming at the awards ceremony and Intervista Digital Media (Hamburg) was particularly pleased. Their co-production She, a Chinese [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Xiaolu Guo was awarded the Golden Leopard of this year's festival, reaping both audience and critical acclaim.

Twenty Twenty Vision (Berlin) also had a good reason to celebrate. Plato’s Academy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Constantin Moriatis
interview: Filippos Tsitos
interview: Filippos Tsitos
film profile] by Filippos Tsitos picked up three prizes: Best Actor Leopard for Antonis Kafetopoulos, Best Film by the Ecumenical Jury, and the Third Prize from the festival's Youth Jury.

Detlev Buck’s Same Same But Different [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Boje Buck Produktion, Berlin) received the Variety Piazza Grande Award. The critics of Variety awarded the prize to a film that stands out for both its artistic qualities and its potential for theatrical release. Around 8,000 enthusiastic spectators had attended the film's premiere two days beforehand.

Fabian Busch’s Edgar received a Special Mention in the Leopards of Tomorrow International Competition. The short was produced by Kontrastfilm (Mainz).