In Giorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth, winner of the 2009 Stockholm Film Festival’s Bronze Horse for best film, a patriarch (Christos Stergioglou) tries to shield his cloistered wife (Michelle Valley) and two daughters (Aggeliki Papoulia and Mary Tsoni) from the outside world. Apart from selected home video entertainment and Frank Sinatra records – the girls believe that’s grandpa singing – they live in total sociocultural isolation. Then enters a female outsider to burst that bizarre family bubble. Lanthimos co-wrote the screenplay with Efthymis Filippou.
“An exploration of the fine line between man and animal,” reads Sebastian Lindvall‘s film commentary, “Dogtooth leaves us wondering if society as we know it is in fact nothing but a zoo.”
Mo’Nique was voted best actress for her performance in Lee Daniels’ Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, in which she plays Gabourey Sidibe’s abusive mother, while, in the words of the Stockholm Film Festival jury, exposing “the complexity of a woman torn between repulsion and craving. She has with her musicality, timing and emotional intelligence brought self-deception into the light.”
Mo’Nique, winner of a special acting award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, is one of the favorites for the 2010 best supporting actress Academy Award.
Édgar Flores received best actor honors for his tough Central American gang member in Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre. “His character falls into a void at the heart of today’s society,” wrote the Stockholm jury, “but retains a humanity that shines through every scene that he is in … We know we will see more of this Honduran-born actor and we look forward to it.”
Susan Sarandon was also present to receive the Stockholm Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award 2009. Among Sarandon’s credits are The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Pretty Baby, Atlantic City, The Witches of Eastwick, Bull Durham, Thelma and Louise, Lorenzo’s Oil, Dead Man Walking, In the Valley of Elah, and The Lovely Bones.
Luc Besson, for his part, was honored with the Stockholm Visionary Award. Among Besson’s credits as a director are The Big Blue, The Professional, La Femme Nikita, and The Fifth Element.
Photos: Johan Gunnarsson (Sarandon); Jenny Arner (Besson) / Courtesy Stockholm Film Festival
2009 Stockholm Film Festival: Nov. 18-29.
BRONZE HORSE AWARDS
Best Film: Dogtooth by Giorgos Lanthimos
Best First Feature: Sin NombreBest Actress Mo’Nique for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Best Actor Edgar Flores in Sin Nombre
Best Screenplay Eran Creevy for Shifty
Best Cinematography Christophe Beaucarne for Mr. Nobody
Best Music Krister Linder for Metropia
Best Short Film: Logorama by François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy, Ludovic Houplain
Stockholm Lifetime Achievement Award 2009 Susan Sarandon
Stockholm Visionary Award Luc Besson
LOréal Paris Rising Star 2009 Anastasios Soulis
FIPRESCI Jury Prize: Sin Nombre by Cary Joji Fukanaga
Honorary Mention: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire by Lee Daniels
OTHER AWARDS
Telia Film Award: Miss Kicki by Håkon Liu
Silver Audience Award: The Cove by Louie Psihoyos
1 km film Amanda Kernell, director of Att dela allt (Sharing All )
Honorable mention 1 km film Jöns Mellgren for Den Mörka ön (The Dark Island )
ifestival winner : Pim, Pam, Pum by Asier Urbieta and Andoni De Carlos
International Competition Jury: director Björn Stein, producer Olivier Guerpillon, actress Lina Englund, film critic Fionnuala Halligan and singer Maria Andersson
Susan Sarandon, the star of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Pretty Baby, Atlantic City, Thelma & Louise, Lorenzo’s Oil, The Client, and one of the leads in Peter Jackson’s upcoming The Lovely Bones, was honored with the 2009 Stockholm Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Sarandon, who won an Oscar for Dead Man Walking, was in Stockholm to receive her special Bronze Horse. Photo: Johan Gunnarsson
Among Sarandon’s other screen credits are The Other Side of Midnight, Loving Couples, The Hunger, The Buddy System, The Witches of Eastwick, Bull Durham, Twilight (not the Robert Pattinson-Kristen Stewart vampire tale), Elizabethtown, The Greatest, In the Valley of Elah, Enchanted, Speed Racer, and the upcoming Peacock and Oliver Stone’s Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.
Sarandon has been touted as a potential best supporting actress contender for the 2010 Academy Awards for her work in The Lovely Bones.
Susan Sarandon. Photo: Jenny Arner
Susan Sarandon introduced a special screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The 1975 cult musical co-stars Barry Bostwick and Tim Curry as a transsexual vampire. Jim Sharman directed. Photo: Johan Gunnarsson
Photos: Courtesy of the Stockholm Film Festival
Best actress Oscar winner Susan Sarandon (for Dead Man Walking back in 1995) was at the 2009 edition of the Stockholm Film Festival, where she was handed the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award. (Image: Kalle Mörck.)
Among Sarandon’s screen credits, which span nearly 40 years, are Atlantic City, Thelma & Louise, Lorenzo’s Oil, and The Client. She was nominated for best actress Academy Awards for those four films.
Susan Sarandon will next be seen in Peter Jackson’s supernatural murder thriller/psychological drama The Lovely Bones, in which Sarandon plays Saoirse Ronan’s grandmother. Also in the film’s cast are Mark Wahlberg, Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz (for The Constant Gardener in 2005), and Stanley Tucci.
While in Stockholm, Sarandon also introduced a special screening of the 1975 cult musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show, in which she plays opposite Barry Bostwick and Tim Curry.
Writer-producer-director Luc Besson, among whose directorial credits are The Big Blue, The Professional, La Femme Nikita, and The Fifth Element, receives the Stockholm Visionary Award from actress/model Emma Wiklund. Photo: Jenny Arner
Cary Fukunaga’s socio-psychological drama Sin Nombre, about Central Americans trying to enter the United States, was voted best first film. Sin Nombre‘s male star, Edgar Flores, was chosen best actor. (Image: Emi Stahl.)
Photos: Courtesy of the Stockholm Film Festival
Festival director Git Scheynius and Lee Daniels at the 2009 Stockholm Film Festival. (Image: Carla Orrego Veliz)
Lee Daniels’ Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire earned Mo’Nique a Best Actress award. In the film, Mo’Nique plays illiterate, pregnant teenager Gabourey Sidibe’s abusive mother. Additionally, Precious received an honorary mention from the International Film Critics. (Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre was the critics’ top choice.)
Precious, Daniels, and Mo’Nique have all been touted as potential Oscar contenders. Mo’Nique, however, will probably land a Best Supporting Actress nomination, while Gabourey Sidibe will likely get a Best Actress nod.
Also in the Precious cast: Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, and Lenny Kravitz.
Anastasios Soulis was the winner of this year’s L’Oréal Paris Rising Star Award. (Image: Carla Orrego Veliz.)
The 22-year-old, Stockholm-born Soulis has been working on film and television for nearly a decade. Among his credits are Richard Hobert’s Everyone Loves Alice (2002), Anne Novionss’ Les grandespersonnes (2008), and Ulf Malmros’ The Wedding Photographer (2009).
Andreas Wilson, the star of the Academy Award-nominated drama Evil (2003). (Image: Carla Orrego Veliz.)
Photos: Courtesy of the Stockholm Film Festival
Bitch Slap stars America Olivo, Julia Voth and Erin Cummings at the 2009 Stockholm Film Festival. (Image: Carla Orrego Veliz.)
Directed by Rick Jacobson, and co-written by Jacobson and Eric Gruendemann, Bitch Slap is a throwback to B movies of the ’60s and ’70s a la Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, in which women kick ass, throw punches, and display canyon-deep cleavage. The film had its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.
Also in the Bitch Slap cast: Michael Hurst, Ron Melendez, William Gregory Lee, and Lucy Lawless.
Jan Kounen, the director of Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, starring Mads Mikkelsen and Anna Mouglalis, and 99 Francs, a box office hit with Jean Dujardin and the recently deceased Jocelyn Quivrin. Photo: Maria Nyholm
Gaspar Noé, director of Enter the Void, the story of a young dope dealer who resurfaces as a ghost to watch over his sister. Some found the film mesmerizing, others puzzling, and others yet deadly dull. (Image: Emi Stahl)
In the Enter the Void cast: Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, and Cyril Roy.
Photos: Courtesy of the Stockholm Film Festival
Sasha Grey in The Girlfriend Experience.
Stockholm Film Festival breaks attendance record
November 30: The 2009 edition Stockholm International Film Festival attracted the two-decade-old festival’s biggest audience ever: 130,000 moviegoers.
The Stockholm festival’s 20th anniversary was celebrated with screenings on ice, and the presence of international celebrities such as Lifetime Achievement Award winner Susan Sarandon, Luc Besson, and Precious director Lee Daniels.
The ten films that drew the largest crowds during the festival were mostly American-made fare: Up in the Air, starring George Clooney; Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, featuring George Clooney’s voice; Lee Daniels’ Precious, which earned Mo’Nique the festival’s best actress award; Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control; John Hillcoat’s The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen; Tarik Saleh’s sci-fi thriller Metropia, with Vincent Gallo and Juliette Lewis; Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro, with Gallo and Maribel Verdú; Jan Kounen’s Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, with Danish star Mads Mikkelsen and Anna Mouglalis; Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, with Sasha Grey; and Shane Acker’s animated feature 9, which turned out to be a box office disappointment in the United States.
Over 180 films from 53 countries were shown during the 12-day festival, and 101 filmmakers and performers took part in the event.
Also, the newly established “distribution prize,” the Telia Film Award, was given to Håkon Liu’s Miss Kicki, a film that, ironically, still lacks Scandinavian distribution even though its screening was sold out at the festival.
2 comments
Now that Honduras has had their fair and transparent elections it’s time to
gather up and go build some homes in the countryside. It’s a shame the world wants to punish these people for the faults of their leaders and the ambitions of others.
I was told that Drew Barrymore’s Whip It sold out at the festival.