27/10/2014 - The main prizes based on viewers’ preferences have been awarded. Stephen Daldry’s film also earns the Special Jury Award in the section Alice nella città

The audience of the 9th edition of the Rome Film Festival, concluded last Saturday, selected its winners. Based on preferences expressed outside the theatre via electronic vote (this year the festival had no jury – read the news), the BNL Audience Award for the Gala section went to Trash [+see also:
film review
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making of
film profile] by British Stephen Daldry (read the review) and that of the Prospettive Italia section (fiction) to Fino a qui tutto bene [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Roan Johnson (read the article). Staying in the Italian section, the audience selected as best documentary Looking for Kadija [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Francesco G. Raganato, shot in Eritrea, while the other two key festival awards flew out of Europe: Audience Award - Cinema d'Oggi to Chinese 12 Citizens by Xu Ang and Audience Award - Mondo Genere to Indian Haider by Vishal Bhardwaj.

The TAODUE Golden Camera Award for Best First Film – decided by a jury this time and chaired by director Jonathan Nossiter – was granted to Escobar: Paradise Lost [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile] by Andrea Di Stefano (screened in the Gala section), that of Best Producer to Laura Hastings-Smith for X+Y [+see also:
film review
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film profile] by Morgan Matthews (Alice nella città), with a Special Mention for Last Summer [+see also:
film review
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film profile] by Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli (Prospettive Italia), which also won two side awards. The DOC/IT Award for Best Italian Documentary (jury chaired by producer Federico Schiavi) went to Largo Baracche [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Gaetano Di Vaio and a Special Mention went to Roma Termini [+see also:
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film profile] by Bartolomeo Pampaloni.

As for the independent and parallel sidebar, Alice nella città, the jury, made up of 21 teens between 14 and 18 years of age, granted the Award for Best Film in the Young/Adult competition to The Road Within by American director and writer Gren Wells, while the Special Jury Award went to Trash (Daldry’s film was screened in collaboration with the Gala section).

The ninth edition of the Rome Film Festival, the last to be hosted by Marco Müller (his three year mandate ends in December), recorded 80,000 admissions, as well as the 24,500 for Alice nella città. The outgoing artistic director will go back to teaching at university, in Switzerland. “All I can do is to regard this experience, from which I’ve learned so much, as complete”, said Müller thanking everyone and saying his goodbyes, “farewell Rome, farewell Italy”.

(Translated from Italian)