04/05/2006

Homesick (Koti-ikävä), the directorial debut by Petri Kotwica, has been awarded the Don Quixote Prize for Best Film at the Kristiansand International Children´s Film Festival (April 25-May 1).

The prize was given by the International Federation of Film Clubs (FICC) for the following reason: “Although we got to see a number of very good films, we quickly agreed on the winner. It is an intense and strong movie about a 17 year-old boy for whom the burden of life becomes too heavy. An unbearable responsibility is placed upon him and, after an incident, he ends up in psychiatric hospital. The film deals with his way out of the trauma. The camerawork and the gold-tinted and coarse-grained photography give [the film] an almost documentary-like quality and allow us to feel close to the main character”.

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Starring Julius Lavonen (also cast in Pekka Lehto’s Game Over) and Janne Virtanen (Frozen Land), the film was produced by Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho from Making Movies Oy. International sales are being handled by Oy Future Film Ab. Kotwica, who studied filmmaking at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, will start shooting his next feature, Black Ice (Musta jää), for Making Movies next autumn.