03/02/2014 - After the César Awards - and before a potential Oscar win - Ernest and Célestine has come out on top at the Magritte Awards, clinching the Best Film and Best Director awards

The competition promised to be tight at the fourth Magritte Awards, and there can have been few who predicted the outcome accurately. At the top of the list of winners were Ernest and Célestine, the big bear and little mouse created by the Belgian illustrator Gabrielle Vincent, and brought to the big screen thanks to the collective talent of Daniel Pennac, who wrote the screenplay, and the French director Benjamin Renner, as well as his two co-directors, Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier. They were given the Magritte Award for Best Director on Saturday night. The film was extremely successful, turning all three of its nominations into awards, as it also picked up the prize for Best Sound. The directors said they were particularly proud of the latter award, as they care a great deal about their sound.

The acting awards were given to two of Belgian cinema's sure-fire stars, who have an international appeal: the young but already widely recognised Pauline Etienne (The Nun [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Guillaume Nicloux
film profile]) and the great Benoît Poelvoorde, who won his first Best Actor award for A Place on Earth [+see also:
trailer
film profile] at the event. Pauline Burlet, already nominated last year for Dead Man Talking [+see also:
trailer
film profile], clinched the Best Female Newcomer award for The Past [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], and Achille Ridolfi was praised for In the Name of the Son [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which secured him his only award, despite his seven nominations.

Tango Libre [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Frédéric Fonteyne
film profile], the film which headed up the list of nominations with a total of ten, was in the end awarded Best Screenplay (for Philippe Blasband, who was also nominated for the screenplay of My Friend Vijay [+see also:
trailer
interview: Sam Garbarski
film profile] by Sam Gabarski, and Anne Paulicevich, who was also nominated for Best Actress). In addition, it won Best Set Design, which went to Véronique Sacrez (who had already been “Magritted” last year for her work in A Distant Neighbourhood [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sam Garbarski
film profile] by Sam Gabarski). The rest of the awards were more eclectic: of note were the Best Flemish Coproduction Award, which went to Fien Troch's stunning third film, Kid [+see also:
trailer
film profile], and the people's-choice Best First Film award, which went to Une chanson pour ma mère [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (A Song for my Mother), by Joël Franka.

Best Film
Ernest and Célestine – Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner (produced by Vincent Tavier and Philippe Kauffmann, La Parti Production)

Best Director
Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar for Ernest and Célestine

Best Flemish Coproduction
Kid – Fien Troch (coproduced by Versus Production)

Best Coproduced Foreign Film
Blue is the Warmest Colour [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Abdellatif Kechiche
film profile] – Abdellatif Kechiche (coproduced by Geneviève Lemal, Scope Pictures)

Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation
Philippe Blasband and Anne Paulicevich for Tango Libre

Best Actress
Pauline Etienne for The Nun

Best Actor
Benoît Poelvoorde for A Place on Earth

Best Supporting Actress
Catherine Salée for Blue is the Warmest Colour

Best Supporting Actor
Laurent Capelluto for Just a Sigh [+see also:
trailer
film profile]

Best Female Newcomer
Pauline Burlet for The Past

Best Male Newcomer
Achille Ridolfi for In the Name of the Son

Best DOP
Hichame Alaouie for God's Horses [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nabil Ayouch
film profile]

Best Sound
Emmanuel de Boissieu, Frédéric Demolder, Franco Piscopo and Luc Thomas for Ernest and Célestine

Best Set Design
Véronique Sacrez for Tango Libre

Best Wardrobe
Catherine Marchand for My Friend Vijay

Best Original Score
Ozark Henry for The World Belongs to Us [+see also:
trailer
interview: Stephan Streker
film profile]

Best Editor
Marie-Hélène Dozo for Kinshasa Kids [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marc-Henri Wajnberg
film profile]

(Translated from French)