07/02/2007

In the end, there is always only one real winner at a festival. At the 38th Hungarian Film Week (January 30-February 6) in Budapest the winner, a comical road movie by Gábor Rohonyi, was fittingly named Konyec [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (lit. “The End”) and picked up Best Genre Film, that is, the award for best mainstream feature, topped off by the Audience Award.

Others also have reason to smile, however. Equally strong accolades for Best Arthouse Film went to Csaba Bollók’s much talked about Iska’s Journey [+see also:
film review
film profile], which is travelling to Berlinale’s Generation section this week.

János Szász should feel just as satisfied, as his Opium: Diary of A Madwoman, starring Danish actor Ulrich Thomsen and Norway’s Kirsti Stubø, leaves the festival with prizes for Best Director and a Best Cinematography (Tibor Máthé) as well as the Gene Moskowitz Prize, awarded by the foreign professionals present at the event.

Newcomer Árpád Bogdán picked up the Best First Film award for his moody, Berlin-bound (in the Panorama section) Happy New Life [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

Krisztina Goda’s features Children of Glory [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Just Sex and Nothing Else [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the country’s top box office hits of 2006, won the Hungarian Cinema Exhibitors and the National Radio and Television Board (ORTT) awards, respectively.

Children of Gloryv, a powerful drama about how a star player of the infamous Hungarian Olympic water polo team of 1956 and his girlfriend fight Soviet occupation in their own way, broke all-time opening weekend records for a Hungarian film when it premiered last autumn. Produced by Hollywood veteran, Hungarian-born Andrew Vajna (Rambo, Evita, Terminator 3), now residing in Budapest, the film is scheduled to be shown as a Berlinale Special on February 10.

The 38th Hungarian Film Week main awards:

Main Prize for Best Arthouse Film:
Iska’s Journey by Csaba Bollók

Main Prize for Best Genre Film:
Konyec by Gábor Rohonyi

Best Director: János Szász for
Opium: Diary of A Madwoman

Best Cinematography: Tibor Máthé for
Opium: Diary of A Madwoman

Best First Film: Árpád Bogdán for
Happy New Life

Best Actress: Kata Kovács for
Kythera

Best Actor: Sándor Zsótér for
Fragment

Gene Moskowitz Prize:
Opium: Diary of A Madwoman

Audience Award:
Konyec

Prize of the Association of Hungarian Cinema Exhibitors:
Children of Glory by Krisztina Goda

Prize of the National Radio and Television Board (ORTT):
Just Sex and Nothing Else by Krisztina Goda