06/10/2006

By awarding the Golden Bayard for Best Film to Falafel, the debut feature by Lebanese director Michel Kammoun, the jury of the 21st Namur Francophone Film Festival paid recognition to a film very much in touch with the turmoil of a recent historical event.

Completed only a few weeks ago, Falafel recounts life after the war in Beirut through the nocturnal wanderings of a young man who seeks to live a normal life, but is put to the test by the insanity of a world still haunted by war.

A few minutes before the prize, the jury presented an award to the film’s composer, Toufik Farroukh. Scripted and produced by Kammoun, Falafel took three years to make and was co-produced by France’s Ciné Sud Promotion.

The Special Jury Prize went to Romanian title The Paper Will Be Blue, Radu Muntean’s second feature, which also screened at Locarno this year, while the first comedy by Swiss documentary director Jean-Stéphane Bron, My Brother Is Getting Married [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean-Stéphane Bron
interview: Thierry Spicher
film profile] (see news), picked up Best Screenplay.

Best Actor also went to Cyril Troley, who made his first appearance on the big screen after being spotted by Nicolas Klotz for Paria. In the same category, young French actress Mélanie Laurent won Best Actress for Philippe Lioret’s Don’t Worry, I’m Fine [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

The jury of young French-language cinephiles handed out Best First Film to French title A Summer Day [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Frank Guérin.

Three other important awards were won by Belgian films. On receiving the Golden Bayard for Best Documentary, Bernard Bellefroid thanked his producers, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, for having supported his debut film Rwanda: The Hills Speak. Bellefroid has already set off on another adventure with the directors, with preparation currently underway on his first feature La régate (lit. “The Regatta”).

Meanwhile, the debut feature by Belgium’s Olivier Masset-Depasse, Cages [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (see article), won double honours, picking up the Audience and the Junior Jury awards. The prize-winning film now awaits audiences, with its Belgian release slated for January 2007 through Cinéart-Cinélibre.

(Translated from French)