As I Open My Eyes wins big at Saint-Jean-de-Luz
- Leyla Bouzid’s feature debut has snagged Best Film, Best Actress and the Audience Award, while Hákonarson, Bidegain and Rahim were also among the winners
The Saint-Jean-de-Luz Festival, an event dedicated to first and second fiction films, has unveiled a 2015 awards list dominated by As I Open My Eyes [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Leyla Bouzid
film profile] by Leyla Bouzid (watch the interview). Revealed in the Venice Days (winning the Europa Cinemas Label and the Audience Award), the feature debut by the filmmaker also charmed those present at the gathering in the seaside city bordering the Basque Country, where it went home with three trophies: Best Film, Best Actress (Baya Medhaffer) and the Audience Award. Produced by Blue Monday together with Tunisia and Belgium, the feature, which is sold by Doc & Film international, will be distributed in France on 23 December by Shellac.
The Best Director Award went ex-aequo to two filmmakers who were popular at Cannes: Iceland’s Grímur Hákonarson (watch the interview) for Rams [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Grimur Hakonarson
film profile] (which emerged triumphant in Un Certain Regard on the Croisette and will be released on 9 December in French theatres by ARP Sélection) and French director Thomas Bidegain with Les Cowboys [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (unveiled in the Directors’ Fortnight and set to be distributed in France by Pathé on 25 November).
Interestingly, the Best Actor Award went to Tahar Rahim for Les anarchistes [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Elie Wajeman (which was premiered in the Cannes Critics’ Week and will be out in France on 11 November, courtesy of Mars Distribution), and the young jury bestowed its award upon the Spanish feature Un otoño sin Berlín by Lara Izagirre.
(Translated from French)
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