29/07/2019 - Misho Antadze, Ladj Ly and Juris Kursietis were among the victors at this year's edition

Directors Ana Maria Rossi and Misho Antadze on stage at the awards ceremony (© FoNet)

It's a wrap for the 26^th edition of European Film Festival Palić, one of the leading cinema events in the Balkan region. The Serbian festival, which took place from 20-26 July this year, presented over 130 films across 15 programmes and parallel sections, and was brought to a close by the traditional awards ceremony held in the Summer Stage open-air cinema, followed by the screening of the Dardenne brothers' Young Ahmed [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
film profile].

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The main competition saw the triumph of Ladj Ly's Les Misérables [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ladj Ly
film profile], the winner of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and now crowned with the Golden Tower for Best Film. The jury, composed of actor Tom Burke (president), producer Aleš Pavlin, actress Marta Bereš as well as directors Syllas Tzoumerkas and Lawrence Tooley, decided to award the film “for the successful combination of a genre narrative with the vivid exploration of issues that speak not only for those oppressed in France, but worldwide”. The drama, inspired by the 2005 riots in the Paris suburbs, also won the prestigious FIPRESCI Award for Best Film. The FIPRESCI jury, composed of Jan Storø, Barbara Kosecka and Eithne O’Neill, described Ladj Ly's feature as “a powerful and brilliantly crafted drama of social unrest, set in the ethnic suburbs of a European capital, bearing universal resonance.”

The Palić Tower for Best Director went to Latvia's Juris Kursietis, the helmer of the Latvian-Belgian-French co-production Oleg [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juris Kursietis
film profile]. The jury highlighted how the director managed to “masterfully interweave brutality and humanity, the profane and the holy, bleakness and strange beauty, to give us an accurate and visceral portrait of our times”. Furthermore, the jury announced two Special Mentions: the first went to director Yaron Shani and lead actor Eran Naim for their detailed portrayal of a unique anti-hero in Chained [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Yaron Shani
film profile], and the second was bestowed upon Ana Maria Rossi for her debut feature, Ajvar [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ana Maria Rossi
film profile].

Finally, the International Jury of Critics, made up of Vesna Perić, Nick Pinkerton and Kieron Corless, unanimously awarded Misho Antadze's directorial debut, The Harvest [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], as Best Film in the “Parallels and Encounters” selection. The jury appreciated the movie's “conceptual rigour, cinematographic ingenuity and the lyrical manner in which it shows us the very 21^st-century consistency of traditional analogue and ultramodern digital cultures, tying together the local and the global; a work of extraordinary sophistication from a first-time feature filmmaker”. A Special Mention was also given to actress Martina Apostolova for her title role in Nadejda Koseva's Irina [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Martina Apostolova
film profile].

Here is the list of the main award winners:

Golden Tower for Best Film
Les Misérables [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ladj Ly
film profile] - Ladj Ly (France)

Palic Tower for Best Director
Juris Kursietis - Oleg [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juris Kursietis
film profile] (Latvia/Belgium/France)
Special Mentions
Yaron Shani and Eran Naim - Chained [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Yaron Shani
film profile] (Israel/Germany)
Ana Maria Rossi - Ajvar [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ana Maria Rossi
film profile] (Serbia/Montenegro)

FIPRESCI Award for Best Film
Les Misérables - Ladj Ly

Critics Jury Award – Parallels and Encounters
The Harvest [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] – Misho Antadze (Georgia/USA)
Special Mention
Martina Apostolova - Irina [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Martina Apostolova
film profile] (Bulgaria)