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AWARDS Greece

Class Enemy wins at Athens’ European Panorama fest

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- The multi-awarded Slovenian Oscar entry picked up the FIPRESCI award; Serbia’s Withering and Russia’s The Sea also awarded.

Class Enemy wins at Athens’ European Panorama fest
Class Enemy by Rob Bicek

Rob Bicek’s feature debut, about a Slovenian classroom turning on its German-language teacher, picked up the FIPRSECI award at this year’s Athens European Panorama. The film added the festival’s prize to a list of accolades that started at the Venice Critics’ Week and is hoping to go all the way to the Oscars, or at least the Foreign Film category’s shortlist, as Class Enemy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rok Biček
interview: Rok Bicek
interview: Rok Bicek
film profile
]
is Slovenia’s entry in the race.

The three-member FIPRESCI jury, comprised of Romania’s Giulia Dobre, Norway’s Aleksander Huser and Greece’s Roby Eksiel, picked Class Enemy as “a film that discreetly but articulately explores a complex issue both moral and existential in nature. It discusses the generation gap and the hardships of art and education, and does so through impressive control upon its means of expression, even though it is a directorial debut”.

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Having been dubbed an “award in memory of Theo Angelopoulos” since last year, the award was handed out by the late director’s surviving wife and long-time producer Phoebe Angelopoulos, and was picked up by the Slovenian ambassador, on behalf of the director.

A jury of filmgoers, compiled by a prominent Athenian city-guide weekly, handed out its own award to Karlovy Vary contender Withering [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
. Milos Pusic’s sophomore feature, this Serbian drama revolves around themes of familial burdens, generational gaps and socioeconomic hardship in the Balkan region, with a man leaving Belgrade to return to his half-deserted hometown, before planning to leave the country for good.

Fest director and veteran film critic Nino Fenek Mikelides handed out the Panorama award to Russian Karlovy Vary entry The Sea, by Alexandra Strelyanaya, while life time achievement awards were presented to The Enemy Within [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
director Yorgos Tsemberopoulos, Miss Violence [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alexandros Avranas
film profile
]
supporting actor Minas Hatzissabas and set and costume designer Anastassia Arseni.

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