15/04/2013 - For once, the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival has rewarded a comedy, and one mostly targetting teenagers: Ghost Graduation by Spanish director Javier Ruiz Caldera

The 31st edition of the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival ended on Saturday, April 13th, consecrating the Spanish film Ghost Graduation [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Javier Ruiz Caldera. High school, that emotional and hormonal limbo in which wandering souls stay trapped, is no metaphoric description for the teacher Modesto, but in fact a daily routine which, even worse than a limbo, sometimes turns into hell. After many transfers due to a "gift" that turns out to be more cumbersome than special (he sees the dead), Modesto finds himself assigned to a new school infested with adolescent ghosts who were out of luck and died before getting their diploma. Modesto then takes on a very delicate mission: teaching rather mediocre students so that they can pass their exams and graduate.    

This Spanish teen movie, which euphorically unfurls the clichés of the genre, multiplying references to high school comedies of the '80s, had the good fortune of pleasing both the BIFF’s Grand Jury and its public. For once, it is indeed a horror movie, but one light in tone, which has won the Golden Raven.

The European jury chose May I Kill U? by Stuart Urban, a cantankerous and horrific comedy, a kind of British Dexter, in which a plain-clothes police officer, vigilante in his spare time, cannot resist the temptation of social-mediatizing his exploits, thus inevitably attracting a little more attention than he needs to pursue his mission in peace.  

The 7th Orbit jury rewarded the highly anticipated Blancanieves [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pablo Berger
film profile] by Pablo Berger, which represented Spain for the Oscars, and has already won no less than 10 Goya Awards.

Finally, the Thriller Award went to the Korean film Confession of Murder by Byung-Gil Jung, while the Silver Raven was shared by Abductee by Japanese director Yudai Yamaguchi, and the Canadian film American Mary by Jen and Sylvia Soska. It was therefore an eclectic winners’ list, between Pavlovian laughter, high school musicals, expressionist tales, floods of hemoglobin and horrific chills. 

(Translated from French)