26/03/2013 - With Mungiu's Beyond Hills out of contest, Radu Jude’s film wins Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay

The 2013 edition of the Gopos can only be described as poor. With Cristian Mungiu’s Cannes-winning Beyond the Hills [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cosmina Stratan
interview: Cristian Mungiu
interview: Cristian Mungiu
interview: Cristian Mungiu
film profile] out of contest, only a few Romanian films fought for a trophy last night, when the Gopo gala, the Romanian film industry awards, took place at the National Opera House in Bucharest. The night’s big winner was Radu Jude’s Everybody in Our Family [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Radu Jude
film profile], which took home Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay, the most important awards of the evening. The HiFilm production also won Best Actor (Serban Pavlu), Best Supporting Actor (Gabriel Spahiu) and Best Supporting Actress (Mihaela Sirbu).

If Jude won all the important awards, Silviu Purcarete’s Somewhere in Palilula [+see also:
trailer
film profile] was preferred for almost every technical category, winning as many seven trophies (Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Music, Best Sound, Best Costumes, Best Art Direction, and Best Make-Up and Hair-Style) over the three-hour long ceremony.  Tudor Giurgiu’s Of Snails and Men [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tudor Giurgiu
film profile] and Iura Luncasu’s Sweet Little Lies won Audience awards, the first for the biggest number of admissions in 2012, the other for the biggest earnings.

Ivana Mladenovic’s Turn Off the Lights won Best Documentary, while Gabriel Achim won Best Debut for his Adalbert’s Dream [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gabriel Achim
film profile]. Young director Nicolae Constantin Tanase received Best Newcomer award for his short film Blu. Actors Mitica Popescu and Constantin Codrescu received Lifetime Achievement awards.

The 2013 edition of the Gopos shows how small thw Romanian film industry actually is. No matter how many awards Romanian films win at important film festivals, it takes only one clash between a director and the organizers to almost ruin a gala. As Cristian Mungiu refused to let his film be nominated in any category, the Gopos couldn’t round up enough Best Actress nominations and no Best Actress award was given last night. At the end of the night, all winners took home their awards with the nagging suspicion that they were perhaps the second-best of 2012.