Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit named Best Film at the 2007 Tokyo Film Festival.
Tokyo Film Festival Awards 2007: The Band’s Visit is top title
The story of an Egyptian police band stranded in a small Israeli town, Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit won the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix at the 2007 Tokyo Film Festival, which ran Oct. 20–28.
Nominated for two European Film Awards and eight Israeli Academy Awards, The Band’s Visit is also up for a 2008 Spirit Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
The U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been criticized for disqualifying The Band’s Visit from the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar because most of the film’s dialogue is in English.
Below is a partial list of the 2007 Tokyo Film Festival winners.
Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix: The Band’s Visit
Special Jury Prize: The Western Trunk Line – Dir.: Li Jixian
Best Director: Peter Howitt – Dangerous Parking
Best Actress: Shefali Shah – Gandhi My Father
Best Actor: Damian Ul – Tricks
Best Artistic Contribution: The Waltz – Dir.: Salvatore Maira
Audience Award: Leroy – Dir.: Armin Voelckers
Best Asian/Middle Eastern Film Award: Singapore Dreaming – Dir.: Yen Yen Woo & Colin Goh
Asian Film Special Mention: Dancing Bells – Dir.: Deepak Kumaran Menon
Japanese Eyes Best Picture Award: United Red Army – Dir.: Koji Wakamatsu
Japanese Eyes Special Award: Tears of Kitty – Dir.: Toshiyuki Morioka
Akira Kurosawa Award: David Puttnam
Jury: Alan Ladd Jr. (President), Serge Losique, Nicola Piovani, Wu Nien-Jen, Kioko Kagawa, Yasuo Furuhata
Rome Film Festival Awards 2007: (Anti-)abortion comedy Juno is top pick
Written by Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman, the sentimental U.S.-made (anti-)abortion comedy Juno was named Best Film at the 2007 Rome Film Festival, which ran Oct. 18–27.
The story of a resourceful Minnesota teenager who becomes unexpectedly pregnant and then sets out to get things (more or less) ready for the upcoming baby, Juno stars Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, and Jennifer Garner.
Below is a partial list of the 2007 Rome Film Festival winners.
Best Film: Juno (United States)
Special Jury Award: Hafez – Dir.: Abolfaz Jalili (Iran | Japan)
Best Actress: Jiang Wenli – And the Spring Comes (China)
Best Actor: Rade Serbedzija – Fugitive Pieces (Canada | Greece)
Young Audiences Section: Meet Mr. Daddy – Dir.: Kwang Su Park (South Korea)
Vancouver Film Festival Awards 2007: Persepolis is the People’s favorite
Of note, three Vancouver Film Festival titles focused on marijuana’s legal limbo:
- Nick Wilson’s documentary The Prince of Pot: The US vs. Marc Emery, which revolves around the United States’ seemingly never-ending multibillion-dollar War on Drugs and one of its targets, Canadian citizen Marc Emery, head of the B.C. Marijuana Party, owner of a mail-order marijuana-seed distribution business – and arrested by the Canadian police at the behest of the U.S. government.
- Brett Harvey’s The Union: The Business Behind Getting High, which asserts that market forces – with greedy power-players ranging from pharmaceutical giants to prison guard unions – not health concerns, are keeping pot illegal.
- Allan Moyle’s comedy Weirdsville, written by Willem Wennekers and starring Scott Speedman and American Beauty actor Wes Bentley as a couple of pot smokers in Hamilton, Ontario, who become enmeshed with an unusual satanic cult.
The 26th Vancouver International Film Festival ran from Sept. 27–Oct. 12. Below is a partial list of winners.
People’s Choice Award – International Film: Persepolis – Dir.: Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud (France)
People’s Choice Award – Canadian Film: She’s a Boy I Knew – Dir.: Gwen Haworth
People’s Choice Award – International Nonfiction Film: Garbage Warrior – Dir.: Oliver Hodge (United Kingdom)
JURY AWARDS
Kyoto Planet Climate for Change Award: The Planet – Dir.: Michael Stenberg, Johan Soderberg & Linus Torell (Sweden)
Citytv Western Canada Feature Film Award: Normal – Dir.: Carl Bessai
Honorable Mention: Young People Fucking – Dir.: Martin Gero
Young Asian Cinema Awards: Fujian Blue – Dir.: Robin Weng (China); Mid-Afternoon Barks – Dir.: Zhang Yuedong (China)
Most Promising Director of a Canadian Short Film: Anna McRoberts – The Windfisherman
Best Canadian Documentary Award: Up the Yangtze – Dir.: Yung Chang
Special Mention: The Suicide Tourist – Dir.: John Zaritsky
Women in Film & Television Vancouver Artistic Merit Award: Gwen Haworth for writing, producing, directing, shooting, and editing She’s a Boy I Knew
Festival du Film Britannique de Dinard Awards 2007
The 18th Festival du Film Britannique de Dinard winners were announced in Dinard, Brittany, on Oct. 7. Six features were in competition for the Hitchcock d’Or, which went to David Mackenzie’s Hallam Foe, the tale of a young peeping tom (Jamie Bell) who tries to find both love and the real cause of his mother’s death.
This year’s festival opened with the out-of-competition screening of Ken Loach’s social drama It’s a Free World.
Hitchock d’Or: Hallam Foe
Special Mention: Once – Dir.: John Carney
Audience Award – Hitchcock d’Argent (Silver Hitchcock): Brick Lane – Dir.: Sarah Gavron
“Coup de Coeur” – Hitchcock de Bronze: Garage – Dir.: Lenny Abrahamson
Best Screenplay: Brick Lane – Abi Morgan & Laura Jones
Best Cinematography: Hallam Foe – Dir.: Giles Nuttgens
Best Short: Friends Forever – Dir.: Marçal Forès
Jury: Josiane Balasko (president), Sylvie Testud, Kerry Fox, Linh Dan Pham, Imelda Staunton, Cécile Cassel, Etienne Chicot, Jocelyn Quivrin, Michael Grigsby, Laurent Gerra
Thessaloniki Film Festival Awards 2007
The 48th Thessaloniki Film Festival was held between Nov. 16–25.
In Shangjun Cai’s The Red Awn, after a five-year absence a middle-aged man (Yao Anlian) returns to his hometown to reclaim his house but is told that he is, as per the local registry, officially dead. The living dead man must then regain his place both in society and within his family, as he must now become reacquainted with his young son (Lu Yulai).
Shot in one continuous take, Spyros Stathopoulos’ PVC-1 is a based-on-a-true-story drama about a kidnap victim (Merida Urquia) who is turned into a human time bomb after her family fails to pay for her ransom.
Golden Alexander Award for Best Film: The Red Awn / Hongse Kangbaiyin – Dir.: Shangjun Cai (China)
Silver Alexander Award: PVC-1 – Dir.: Spyros Stathopoulos (Colombia | Greece | USA)
Best Director: Veiko Ounpuu – Autumn Ball (Estonia)
Best Actor: Alberto Sornoza – PVC-1
Best Actress: Anna Lalasidou – Elli Makra – 42277 Wuppertal (Greece)
Best Screenplay: Correction – Thanos Anastasopoulos & Vassilis Raisis (Greece)
Artistic Achievement Award: Year of the Nail / Año Uña – Dir.: Jonas Cuarón (Mexico)
FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) Award – International Competition: PVC-1
FIPRESCI Award – Greek Cinema: The Homecoming / I epistrofi – Dir.: Vassilis Douvlis (Greece)
Audience Award – International Competition: PVC-1
Audience Award – Greek Cinema: El Greco – Dir.: Iannis Smaragdis (Greece)
Audience Award – Balkan Survey: The International / Beynelmilel – Dir.: Sirri Sureyya Onder & Muharrem Gulmez (Turkey)
International Competition Jury: Jirí Menzel, Director (Czech Republic), President; Lucrecia Martel, Director (Argentina); Yasmin Ahmad, Actress-Director-Producer (Malaysia); Michael Fitzgerald, Producer (USA); Nae Caranfil, Director (Romania); Fred Roos, Producer (USA); Olga Brumas, Poet-Professor (Greece)
“Tokyo & Rome Film Festival Awards 2007: Band & Pregnancy” notes
Festival du Film Britannique de Dinard website.
vancouver-film-festival
the-prince-of-pot-vancouver-festival-2007
thessaloniki-film-festival
thessaloniki-film-festival-awards-2007
tokyo-film-festival-awards-2007
vancouver-film-festival-awards-2007
romefilmfest-awards-2007