16/08/2003 - Triumphs for East Europe & the southern hemisphere at the 56th edition with Golden Leopard won by Pakistan's Kamoshi Pani while German's Miracle in Bern gets Audience Award

Those familiar with Switzerland’s premiere film event have long come to expect the unexpected and this year’s winners of the Leopard Awards came straight out of left field. Locarno’s top award, the Golden Leopard, went to a young Pakistani called Sabiha Sumar making her directorial debut with Kamoshi Pani. The film, a Pakistani/Franco/German co-production also won the Ecumenical Jury Award.
The jury of the 56th festival, presided over by a former editor-in-chief of France’s top film publication, Cahiers du Cinéma and a current editor of “Le Monde”, Franck Nouchi did nothing to hide their obvious predilection for titles from Eastern Europe and the southern hemishere and assigned Silver Leopards to Bosnia’s Pjer Zalica for his comedy Gori Vatra (Fuse) and to America’s Catherine Hardwicke for Thirteen. Romanian Calin Netzer won the Special Award for his Romanian/Franco/German co-production, Maria.

It was no easy task deciding who should take home the best actress nod and in the end it was a three-way tie between Holly Hunter for Thirteen, Diana Dumbrava for her tragic portrayal of Maria and Kirron Kher for Kamoshi Pani. Best actor went to Romania’s Serban Ionescu, Dumbrava’s co-star in Maria.
Two Special Mentions were won by Japan’s Masahiro Kobayashi for La Coiffeuse and Iran’s Alireza Amini for Danehaye Rize Barf.
The FIPRESCI international film critics’ jury chose Bolivia’s Dependencia Sexual by Rodrigo Bellot.
Europe had to make do with the Piazza Grande Audience Award, for Miracle in Bern by Teutonic filmmaker Sönke Wortmann.

(Translated from Italian)