27/03/2006

Though North American productions normally hold the high ground, the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film (March10-25) this year rewarded European cinema. In an international competition overwhelmingly dominated by Asian filmmakers highly talented in the genre and established experts from North America (USA and Canada), almost all the prizes this year went to films from the old, grizzled continent.

The jury – composed of French actor Philippe Nahon, Americans Mathew Robbins and Rob Schmidt, and presided over by Canadian actor Michael Ironside – awarded the Golden Raven for Best Film to Danish feature Adam's Apples [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Anders Thomas Jensen
interview: Mads Mikkelsen
interview: Tivi Magnusson
film profile] by Anders Jensen, which also picked up the Audience Award and the Silver Méliès.

Other big winners of this edition include Storm by Sweden’s Marlin and Stein, and two special mentions: the first went to Alma Casal and Juan Serano, make-up artists on the Spanish film Fragile [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] directed by Jaume Balagueró, and to the sole US award-winner, Joe Dante, for Master of Horror 6: Housecoming

In the 7th Orbit section, it was Asia who triumphed this year, thanks to Philippine director Yam Laranas’s The Echo, with another special mention going to James Lee’s The Beautiful Washing Machine, a film out of Malaysia.

The international short film competition once again celebrated young European cinema, through Hungarian filmmaker Andras Desi’s Doll 639, which was a finalist for the Golden Méliès and winner of the Television Prize, and Los Ojos de Alicia by Spanish Jury Prize winner Ugo Sanz hot on its heels.

(Translated from French)