24/11/2003

The Turin Film Festival has ended with a strong showing by France. The debutant director Joel Brisse won the biggest prize for his first feature length film, La fin du règne animal, an “ecological” story about a man who talks to the animals and who is considered by his fellow citizens as the madman of the village. The jury of this 21st edition of the Festival was led by Goutam Ghose and it included Michael Almereyda, Pappi Corsicato, Alison Maclean and Manuel Mozos. In given the award the jury appreciated "the complex and delicate portrait of an outsider who is full of contradictions". There was also Special Prizes given to Nafas - E Ameegh by the Iranian Parviz Shahbazi and to the Polish production Przemiany by Lukasz Barczyk, an extremely intense family drama, which also won the FIPRESCI prize and the Cinema of the Future award. The jury also gave a Special mention to the Japanese film Hako by Kanji Nakajima.

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The Italian production Ho visto mia madre by Ila Beka won the international short films competition. La notte di Totò by Guido Votano and L'esplosione by Giovanni Piperno were jointly awarded the prize for Best Documentary. And there were Special Mentions for Doichlandia by Giuseppe Gagliardi and La zattera di sabbia by Isabella Sandri. The Italian Space competition was won by Setting: the linear video (Take 3/Women only) by Susanna Schoenberg, while Il nido by Carlo Michele Schirinzi was given a Special Mention. The Prize for the Best Screenplay for the films in competition was given to the Korean work, Memories of a murder by Joon-Ho Bong, which also came away with the Public Prize. There were also awards for: I cinghiali di Portici by Diego Olivares, Nadar solo by Ezequiel Acuna and Un homme, un vrai by Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu.