26/01/2009

UK/Irish thriller Helen [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Joe Lawlor and Christine M…
film profile] by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor picked up the Grand Prize at the 21st Premiers Plans Film Festival in Angers on Saturday. Also winner of the Best Actress Award (for Annie Townsend), this debut feature produced by Desperate Optimists was unveiled at the Turin Film Festival (see news).

The film centres on Helen, a young girl who is asked to play the part of a missing woman in a police reconstruction. An orphan raised in institutions, Helen gets caught up in the role and gradually becomes involved in the life of the missing woman, who had a loving family, boyfriend and promising future.

The Special Jury Prize went to Macdara Vallely’s Irish/UK production Peacefire.

Meanwhile, the Audience Award went to Italian title Mid-August Lunch [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Gianni Di Gregorio, who also scooped Best Actor. Unveiled in Critics’ Week at the latest Venice Film Festival (see news), this debut feature was directed by one of the screenwriters on Gomorrah [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Domenico Procacci
interview: Jean Labadie
interview: Matteo Garrone
film profile] by Matteo Garrone. The latter’s production company, Archimede, piloted the project.

Sold internationally by Fandago Portobello Sales, the film will be released in France on March 11 by Le Pacte.

The European Shorts jury crowned Love You More by the UK’s Sam Taylor-Wood, while the audience selected Swedish director Johannes Nyholm’s The Tale of Little Puppetboy.

The French Shorts competition honoured Sandrine Desmazières’ Le thé de l’oubli (“The Tea of Forgetfulness”). Meanwhile, in the Animated Film section, top honours went to La peste (“The Plague”) by Benoît Galland, Gildas Le Franc, Olivier Dubocage and Michal Firkowki.

Finally, German director David Nawrath’s Was bleibt triumphed in the European Student Film section.

(Translated from French)