22/05/2013 - Last night during the Belgian evening, the André Delvaux Academy announced the laureate of the Magritte for Best First Film, which was awarded to Patrick Ridremont for Dead Man Talking

It was therefore at the heart of the Cannes Film Festival that the Academy chose to reveal the results of the great public vote set up to award the Best First Film Magritte. The 2013 Magritte season thus ended yesterday, after having consecrated Our Children [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Joachim Lafosse
film profile] by Joachim Lafosse on February 12th, after the film was successfully presented on the Croisette last year in the Certain Regard section.

After a two month and a half period during which the public was invited to vote online and the 12 first films in competition were screened in the cultural centres of Wallonia and Brussels, which are partners of the Quadrature du Cercle association, the polls have spoken. The last three films in competition (who had received the most votes) were Mobile Home [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by François Pirot, Torpedo [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Mathieu Donck, and Dead Man Talking [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Patrick Ridremont. The latter, absent because of rehearsals for a new play in Brussels, was the most successful with the voters, and it was one of the film’s actresses (Pauline Burlet, who was in competition last week in Cannes with The Past [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), who thus received the trophy.

Dead Man Talking [+see also:
trailer
film profile] was one of the main films nominated last February for the Magritte ceremony (8 nominations), but had only left with a small reward (Best Set Design for Alina Santos), the professionals having sided with the evening’s favourites. Mobile Home won two prizes (Best Music and Best Female Newcomer), and Torpedo, which only had one nomination for Best Male Newcomer, left empty-handed.

The Best First Film Magritte initiative contributes to the willingness of the public authorities and the Magritte organizers to bring Belgian cinema closer to the Belgian public, and especially to be at the heart of the decision-making. While the initiative was encouraging and the echoes from the cultural centres’ operators positive, the love story between the Belgian public and its cinema is yet to be written. 

Photo: Marc Bo

(Translated from French)