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IFFR 2016 Awards

Radio Dreams honoured with the Tiger Award at Rotterdam

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- Other winners include Bodkin Ras, The Last Land and Land of Mine

Radio Dreams honoured with the Tiger Award at Rotterdam
The winners of the 2016 International Film Festival Rotterdam

Radio Dreams by Iranian-born director Babak Jalali has won the Hivos Tiger Awards Competition at the 45th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), as announced by the organisers on Friday evening. The €40,000 prize was shared by Jalali and his producer, Marjaneh Moghimi (of US outfit Butimar Productions).

Described by the jury as a “subtle and humorous reflection on the displacement and alienation of a group of misfits in a foreign culture”, Radio Dreams tells the story of an Iranian writer working at a radio station broadcasting in Persian from San Francisco, who has the dream of bringing together Metallica and Kabul Dreams – Afghanistan’s first rock band.

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Radio Dreams is Jalali’s second feature. His debut, Frontier Blues [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, premiered at Locarno in 2009.

The Special Jury Award (worth €10,000) went to The Last Land [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, a co-production between Paraguay, the Netherlands, Chile and Qatar directed by Paraguay’s Pablo Lamar.

In addition, the FIPRESCI Award – given to the director of the best feature shown in the Bright Future section – went to Kaweh Modiri for Bodkin Ras [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
. According to the FIPRESCI jury, the film is a “fascinating hybrid of documentary and fiction, filled with unforgettable characters, a strong sense of place and an urgency that turns the experiment into a thrilling and humanistic film”. Bodkin Ras is Iranian-born, Dutch-based Modiri’s feature debut.

Land of Mine [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Louis Hofmann
interview: Martin Zandvliet
film profile
]
 by Danish director Martin Zandvliet pocketed both the Warsteiner Audience Award (€10,000) and the MovieZone Award, voted for by the MovieZone young people’s jury, from EYE. Set in the aftermath of World War II, the film is an intense drama focusing on a young group of captured German soldiers who are forced to neutralise the remaining landmines along the Danish coast.

Other winners include Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent (Dioraphte Award – €10,000), Léa Fehner’s Les ogres [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
 (VPRO Big Screen Award – €30,000), Frank Scheffer’s The Perception (KNF Award), Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s The Plague at the Karatas Village (NETPAC Award) and Melisa Liebenthal’s Las lindas, which took home the inaugural Bright Future Award (€10,000 to be spent on developing the director’s next film project).

Bero Beyer, who chaired the IFFR for the first time this year, said while announcing the awards: “IFFR 2016 has been an edition with many inspiring, thought-provoking and engaging cinematic achievements from all over the world. I am grateful and excited that the selection really seemed to resonate with both industry guests and the audience.”

Here is the full list of winners:

Hivos Tiger Award
Radio Dreams – Babak Jalali

Special Jury Award
The Last Land [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
– Pablo Lamar

Warsteiner Audience Award
Land of Mine [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Louis Hofmann
interview: Martin Zandvliet
film profile
]
 – Martin Zandvliet

Hubert Bals Fund Dioraphte Award
Embrace of the Serpent – Ciro Guerra

MovieZone Award
Land of Mine – Martin Zandvliet

VPRO Big Screen Award
Les ogres – Léa Fehner

Bright Future Award
Las lindas – Melisa Liebenthal

FIPRESCI Award
Bodkin Ras [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
 – Kaweh Modiri

NETPAC Award
The Plague at the Karatas Village – Adilkhan Yerzhanov

KNF Award
The Perception – Frank Scheffer

Canon Tiger Awards for Short Films
Dream English Kid 1964-1999 AD – Mark Leckey
Faux départ – Yto Barrada
Engram of Returning – Daïchi Saïto

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