10/10/2011

The 26th Namur International Francophone Film Festival closed on Friday, October 7 with the unveiling of its prize list. In terms of audience numbers, the avant-premieres of this autumn’s major French films lived up to all their promises. Maïwenn’s Poliss [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Maïwenn
film profile] and Eric Toledano’s Untouchable [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] were immensely successful, as was Anne Fontaine’s new film My Worst Nightmare [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which closed the festival. As with any screening of a film starring Benoît Poelvoorde, people had to be turned away, despite the three theatres being used in three of the city’s cinemas.

Less expectedly, other films screened to packed audiences, including Radu Mihaileanu’s The Source [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Nadine Labaki’s Where Do We Go Now? [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (pictured). Viewers and juries shared the same opinion about the Lebanese director’s film, which outshone the rest at the awards ceremony, picking up the Bayard for Best Actress for the whole of its cast, the Junior Jury Prize, and above all, the Golden Bayard for Best Film. The film will receive a generous financial contribution to its distribution in Belgium and another Francophone country.

Meanwhile, Quebec film Monsieur Lazhar won the Jury Prize and the Audience Award for Best Feature Film. Philippe Falardeau is far from being a stranger at FIFF, where his previous film, Congorama [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], met with great approval.

Another darling of the jury was Bouli Lanners’s captivating The Giants [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
interview: Bouli Lanners
film profile], which also won a collective Best Actor Award for Zacharie Chasseriaud, Martin Nissen and Paul Barlet and earned Best Cinematography for its DoP Jean-Paul De Zaeytijd. Meanwhile, Best Screenplay went to Pierre Schoeller for The Minister [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pierre Schoeller
film profile].

Finally, the BeTV Prize for Best Belgian Feature was awarded to Jonathan Zaccaï for his debut feature, JC Like Jesus Christ, a cinematically iconoclastic comedy in which Vincent Lacoste (The French Kissers [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) plays a truly brilliant young director, winner of multiple awards at just 17 years of age (César Award, Palme d’Or, etc.), who faces his biggest challenge yet: his baccalaureate exams.

(Translated from French)