13/03/2007

Chris Kraus' Four Minutes [+see also:
trailer
film profile] came away with two awards on Sunday evening at the 11th Sofia Film Festival (March 1-11).

The jury, presided over by Bakhtiar Khudojnazarov (Luna Papa), named Kraus Best Director, while the Kordes & Kordes Film GmbH production also won the FIPRESCI Prize.

Set in a women's prison, the film portrays the relationship between a retired pianist (Monica Bleibtreu) and a young musician forced to team up as best as they can. The public also gave the film a lengthy standing ovation, which helped Beta Cinema sell the title to Bulgaria, where it will be released in the autumn.

Besides Four Minutes, which represented Germany so well at the festival, other competition titles to win prizes included Srdjan Golubovic's The Trap [+see also:
trailer
film profile], co-produced by Germany, Serbia and Hungary. The cruel dilemma of its hero, who has to choose between losing his son or committing murder, charmed the jury, which awarded the film the Stella Artois Grand Prize.

Dusan Milic's Gucha! Distant Trumpet (Germany/Serbia/Bulgaria/Austria), a take on Hamlet's Romeo and Juliet, which screened in Berlin's Panorama sidebar last month, was chosen as the opening film at Sofia and won the Audience Award.

The Bulgarian festival, which this year attracted a record 80,000 visitors, also honoured German filmmaker Wim Wenders with a retrospective of 17 of his films.

(Translated from French)