Belvaux wins France Cinéma

by Valeria Chiari

10/11/2003 - The Grand Jury Prize has been awarded to the French-Belgium director, Lucas Belvaux, whose trilogy An Amazing Couple [trailer], On the Run [trailer] and Après la vie [trailer] has also gone down well with audiences at the Florentine festival, France Cinéma (watch the video).

The award was given for the complexity of the narrative construction and the maestro’s touch in the directing that “allows one to see the development of the action from the different character’s viewpoints”. This was an opportunity for the 42-year-old director from Namur to finally show his work outside the domestic market and have the chance to find an Italian distributor.
The festival also gave a Special Award given to the first work by Eric Guiraudo, Quand tu descendras du ciel and the actress Sylvie Testud won a prize for her performance in Fear and Trembling [trailer] by Alain Corneau, an adaptation of the book of the same name by Amélie Nothomb.
As a result of budgetary constraints, the France Cinéma festival was reduced by a day, but in spite of this it was a great success with the public, with more than 10,000 people attending the event. The two organisers and creators of the festival, Aldo Tassone and Françoise Pieri, have already announced that the 2004 edition will be featuring a tribute to François Truffaut.

(Translated from Italian)