26/08/2008

The Croatian/Bosnian/German/UK/US co-production Buick Riviera by Goran Rusinovic won the Heart of Sarajevo Award for Best Film – along with €25,000 provided by the Council of Europe – at this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival (August 15-23). Lead actors Leon Lucev and Slavko Stimac shared the Best Actor award and the film also received the Fipresci Prize.

Best Actress went to Turkey’s Ayca Damgaci for her role in Husein Harabey’s festival crowd-pleaser My Marlon and Brando. Klaus Handl’s Austrian film March won the Special Jury Prize, as the first film from a territory that is from this year included in the competition of the most important South-Eastern European festival.

The jury comprised Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, UK director Hugh Hudson, Croatian actress Marija Skaricic, Michael Weber of the Match Factory and Deborah Young, artistic director of the Taormina Film Festival.

The Best Short Film Award went to Ivan Ramadan’s 3-D animated film Tolerantia (Bosnia and Herzegovina), which automatically qualifies it for the EFA Best Short Film Award. Jan Cvitkovic’s I Know (Slovenia/Germany) and Timur Makarevic’s Wake (Bosnia and Herzegovina) received special mentions. Fortissimo Films co-president Michael J. Werner, Bosnian artist Sejla Kameric and Jay Jeon, programmer of Pusan Film Festival, served on the jury.

Boris Despodov’s Corridor #8 (Bulgaria) won Best Documentary from a jury composed of Guadalajara Film Festival director Jorge Sanchez, Bosnian filmmaker Dzemal Sabic and Swiss director Michael Beltrami.

The CICAE award went to Kornel Mundruzco’s Delta [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kornél Mundruczó
interview: Orsi Tóth
film profile] from Hungary. English producer Cat Villiers, who worked on Danis Tanovic’s No Man’s Land [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Milcho Machevski’s Before the Rain, won the Special Heart of Sarajevo Award.