19/11/2012 - Rachid Djaïdani's Hold Back wins Cineuropa Prize

Leonardo di Constanzo's The Interval [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Leonardo Di Costanzo
film profile] won the Best Film Award, at the closing ceremony of the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival which took place yesterday evening. The film, which premiered at the latest Venice Film Festival, is the first fiction project by Constanzo, known so far for his works in the documentary field (read the interview).

The Cineuropa Prize went to Rachid Djaïdani's Hold Back [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rachid Djaïdani
film profile]. The film, first seen in Cannes and recently distributed in France, tells the story of two young people from Paris's popular neighbourhoods, whose plan to get married comes up against a taboo that is still very much anchored in the mentalities of both their communities - a black Christian cannot marry an Arab woman. While experimenting with the essence of the cinematic narrative, in 75 minutes, the director captures with amazing sensitivity the complexity of family dynamics within the diverse ethnic groups which are the fabric of the new urban Europe.

The jury, comprising Austrian pianist Alfred Brendel, French actress Fanny Ardant and US-born cello player and composer Sonia Wieder-Atherton, have also decided to honour Melvil Poupaud for his performance in Xavier Dolan's third feature Laurence Anyways [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Miqel Barceló with a best painting award for his work, which was used by Catalan director Jaime Rosales in his latest film Dream and Silence [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jaime Rosales
film profile].

The João Bénard da Costa Speacil Award was presented in ex-qua to Darezhan Omirbayev’s Student and to Aida Begic’s Children of Sarajevo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aida Begić
film profile], while the award for the Best First Film went to the documentary Winter, Go Away, by ten young filmmakers who lived with a camera for two months in order to chronicle the last 'Russian winter' and its popular uprising against Vladimir Putin's presidential run.