30/11/2012 - Swedish director Richard Hobert's film won the Audience Award at the 27th European Union Film Festival in Toronto, which this year screened 30 films from 27 countries

Swedish writer-director Richard Hobert's A One-way To Antibes [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which garnered Swedish singer and lead actor Sven-Bertil Taube a Guldbagge for Best Actor – Sweden's national film prize – won the Audience Award at the European Union Film Festival in Toronto, which ended yesterday (November 29).

Launched by the consulates and cultural institutes of European Union members eight years ago, the festival this year screened 30 films from 27 countries. "From a humble start with nine entries, it has now matured to a major festival with every EU country showcasing European film and culture," said Lars Henriksson, Honorary Consul of Sweden in Toronto.

Hobert's first feature after five years working in the theatre, staging his own play Security at Stockholm's Royal Theatre, Dramaten, One-Way to Antibes is a tragi-comic family drama co-starring Rebecca Ferguson, Malin Morgan and Dan Ekborg concerning a half-blind widower whose children plan to get their hands on his assets before he dies.

"There is no prize at a festival that is harder to win than the Audience Award - that's the prize every director wants to receive. Hopefully, this honor will result in the film being shown to a broader audience across Canada," said Hobert (The Seven Deadly Sins), whose return to the cinema ran for seven months in local theatres and toured more than 20 international showcases.

Running from November 14-27 at the Royal Theatre (where admission was free and audiences exceeded 8,000), the EU festival in Toronto is organised in collaboration with the Canadian Film Institute. Another EU festival, Europe Without the Jetlag!, is unspooling between November 23-December 6 at the Cinemathèque in Vancouver, staged with the Pacific Cinemathèque.