16/08/2007

The official jury of the 60th Locarno International Film Festival, presided over by Irène Jacob and whose members included Walter Carvalho, Saverio Costanzo, Jia Zhang-ke, Romuald Karmakar and Bruno Todeschini, awarded the Golden Leopard of the International Competition section to The Rebirth by Japanese director Masahiro Kobayashi.

The film also won the Daniel Schmid Award (in honour of the Swiss filmmaker who passed away in August 2006), as well as special mentions from the Youth Jury and the International Confederation of Art Cinemas.

The title of Best Director went to Philippe Ramos for Capitain Achab [+see also:
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film profile] (France/Sweden), which also picked up the FIPRESCI Prize, while Pedro Costa, Harun Farocki and Eugène Green’s Memories (South Korea) took home the Special Jury Prize. Spanish actress Marian Álvares received the Leopard for Best Actress for her role in Roser Aguilar’s Lo mejor de mí [+see also:
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film profile] (“The Best of Me”), while two Best Actor Awards were presented to French star Michel Piccoli for Hiner Saleem’s Sous les toits de Paris [+see also:
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film profile] (“Under Parisian Roofs”) and Italy’s Michele Venitucci for Off the Ropes by Swiss helmer Fulvio Bernasconi.

Benedek Fliegauf’s Tejút (Hungary/Germany) took the Golden Leopard in the Filmmakers of the Present section and Death at a Funeral by Frank Oz (US/UK) won the Audience Award.

Amor Hakkar’s French/Algerian production La maison jaune [+see also:
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film profile] (“The Yellow House”) picked up three awards: the Don Quixote Award from the Fédération internationale des ciné-clubs (FICC), the Ecumencial Jury Prize and Third Prize from the Youth Jury, who also presented awards to Anthony Hopkins’ Slipstream (US) and Peter Payer’s Free to Leave (Austria/Luxembourg).

Allein In Vier Wänden (“Alone Within Four Walls”) by Germany’s Alexandra Westmeier won at Critics’ Week and Thieves by Spain’s Jaime Marques picked up the CICAE Arthouse Prize.

The prizewinners featured another two Italilan titles: Tagliare le parti in grigio by Vittorio Rifranti (Leopard for Debut Film) and Haïti chérie [+see also:
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film profile] by Claudio Del Punta (Environment is the Quality of Life Award).

The anniversary edition of the festival – which screened 338 shorts, medium and full-length features – drew 186,000 visitors to Locarno (192,000 in 2006) and 4,889 accredited professionals (4,221 in 2006) from over 60 countries.

(Translated from French)