12/11/2012 - Teddy Bear and The Angels’ Share respectively win Best Director and Best Screenplay

The ninth edition of the Amazonas Film Festival, held in the Brazilian city of Manaus, closed last Friday with a ceremony during which European films shared the awards with Brazilian and American films.

The jury, presided by Romanian director Tudor Giurgiu (Of Snails and Men [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tudor Giurgiu
film profile]), handed the festival’s top prize, the “vôo na floresta” (lit. “flight over the jungle”) award, to Brazilian director Marcelo Gomes for Once Upon a Time Veronica, and awarded its main actress, Hermila Guedes, Best Actress.

Once Upon a Time Veronica, screened at the last San Sebastian Film Festival, is a Brazilian production minority co-produced by the French Urban Factory that recounts the daily life of a young female psychiatrist struggling with emotional emptiness despite her apparent well-being and the relative tranquility of her daily life. Guedes, who had already acted for Gomes in German minority co-production Cinema, Aspirines and Vultures (2005), impresses by the melancholy and brave way in which she takes on the existential and sexual worries of the film’s eponymous main character.

As for Danish film Teddy Bear [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (read more), it won over both the audience, who gave it the Audience Award, and the members of the jury, who gave it Best Director (Mads Matthiesen).

Paul Laverty won Best Screenplay for his work for Ken Loach’s The Angels’ Share [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ken Loach
film profile], while Adam Stone was awarded Best Cinematography for his work on one of the event’s most disturbing and controversial films: American director Craig Zobel’s Compliance.

Best Actor went to Amazonas-born Begê Muniz, one of the main actors in Sergio Andrade’s A Floresta de Jonathan.

Besides these awards, awards for short fiction, animation, and documentary films were also presented to various young local talents, most of them students and recent film or communication school graduates. The long list of categories for these awards highlighted the Amazonas state’s Secretariat of State for Culture’s decision to promote and, as far as possible, increase the visibility of an embryonic (but effervescent) creative audiovisual industry in a region of the globe generally not associated with the world of film.

Complete list of winners

Feature Films – International Competition
Best Film - Once Upon a Time Veronica - Marcelo Gomes
Best Director - Mads Matthiesen - Teddy Bear
Best Actress - Hermila Guedes - Once Upon a Time Veronica
Best Actor - Begê Muniz - A Floresta de Jonathas
Best Screenplay – Paul Laverty - The Angels’ Share
Best Cinematography - Adam Stone - Compliance
Audience Award - Teddy Bear - Mads Matthiesen

Brazilian Shorts
Best Film - Linear - Amir Admoni
Best Director - Nara Normande - Dia Estrelado
Best Actor - Rafael Souza Ribeiro - A Dama do Estácio
Best Actress - Luciana Paz - A mão que afaga
Best Screenplay - Gabriela Amaral Almeida - A mão que afaga
Best Cinematography - André Brandão - Monumento
Special Jury Prize - A Cidade - Liliana Sulzbach
Audience Award - A galinha que burlou o sistema - Quico Meirelles

Amazonas Shorts - Fiction
Best Film - ET SET ERA - Emerson Medina y Rod Castro
Best Director - Rafael Ramos dos Santos - A última balada
Best Actress - Beatriz Beraldo - ET SET ERA
Best Actor - Breno Castelo - A Última do Tambor
Best Cinematography - Ricardo Araújo de Albuquerque y Leonardo Mancini - A última do Tambor
Best Screenplay - Gabriela Amaral Almeida - A Mão Que Afaga
Audience Award - Uma Doce Dama - Leonardo José Mancini

Amazonas Shorts - Documentaries
Best Film - Chão Molhado - Everton Macedo
Best Director - Everton Macedo - Chão Molhado
Best Screenplay - Sergio Cobelo y Amaru Cobelo - Retratos de Manaus
Best Cinematography - Yure César - Chão Molhado
Audience Award - Retratos de Manaus - Sergio Cobelo Cobelo y Yure César

Amazonas Screenplay Competition
Strip Solidão

(Translated from Spanish)