2009 Rotterdam Film Festival Awards
2009 Rotterdam Film Festival: Jan. 21-Feb. 1, 2009
Be Calm and Count to Seven (top photo), Ramtin Lavafipour's feature-film début, chronicles the day-to-day struggles of a family in Iran's southern islands whose chief source of income is smuggling. In Yang Ik-June's Breathless (middle photo), a nasty extortionist (Yang himself) has his life drastically altered after meeting a determined schoolgirl. In Mahmut Fazil Coskun's Istanbul-set Wrong Rosary (lower photo), a muezzin (the person who leads the call to the mosque's Friday service) falls in love with his neighbor, who happens to be a Catholic nurse.
VPRO Tiger Awards: Be Calm and Count to Seven (Aram bash va ta haft beshmar) by Ramtin Lavafipour (Iran), Breathless (Ddongpari) by Yang Ik-June (South Korea) and Wrong Rosary (Uzak ihtimal) by Mahmut Fazil Coskun (Turkey)
VPRO Tiger Award Jury: Marlene Dumas, Yesim Ustaoglu, Park Ki-Yong, Kornél Mundruczó and Kent Jones
The NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) award: The Land (Dadi) by He Jia (China)
Special Mention: Agrarian Utopia by Uruphong Raksasad (Thailand)
FIPRESCI's International Critics’ Prize: Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly (Babi buta yang ingin terbang) by Edwin (Indonesia)
KNF Award: Tony Manero by Pablo Larraín (Chile/Brazil)
Tiger Awards for Short Film: A Necessary Music by Beatrice Gibson (UK), Despair (Otchajanie) by Galina Myznikova & Sergey Provorov (Russia) and Bernadette by Duncan Campbell (UK)
MovieSquad Award (youth award): Slumdog Millionaire by Danny Boyle & Loveleen Tandan (United Kingdom)
Rotterdam Film Festival Awards: 2009