02/12/2013 - Other award winners of the 17th Black Nights Film Festival include Juliette Binoche and Maksim Sukhanov

The Black Nights Film Festival held its closing ceremony in Tallinn on Saturday night and the event saw plaudits for films from Italy, Iceland and Belgium amongst others.

The festival’s Grand Prix of 10,000 euros, from its EurAsia competition, was awarded to Paolo Sorrentino’s much lauded The Great Beauty [+see also:
film review
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interview: Paolo Sorrentino
film profile], which also saw Luca Bigazzi’s camerawork walk away with Best Cinematographer. Best Actor went to Maksim Sukhanov for Russian film The Role while Juliette Binoche’s eponymous turn in Camille Claudel 1915 [+see also:
film review
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interview: Bruno Dumont
film profile] received the Best Actress Award. The Best Director award goes to Japanese filmmaker Koji Fukada for Au revoir l’été.  The Jury split their Special Jury Prize between two very different movies:  Taiwanese film Stray Dogs [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Tsai Ming-Liang, and Serge Avedikian and Olena Fetisova’s biopic Paradjanov [+see also:
trailer
film profile], following the celebrated Armenian filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov.

The Best Film Prize of the Tridens Competition of Feature Debuts from the Baltic Sea and Nordic Countries went to Of Horses and Men [+see also:
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interview: Benedikt Erlingsson
film profile], Iceland’s 2014 submission for the Academy Awards. Producer Fridrik Thor Fridriksson was on hand to collect the prize as well as the FIPRESCI Award and a nod for Best Cinematography for the work of the film’s cinematographer Bergsteinn Björgulfsson. A special prize for most original story went to Russian film Intimate Parts.

The Heave(i)n award for the Best Estonian Film went to Estonian-Georgian coproduction Tangerines [+see also:
film review
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film profile] which also won the prize from the International Federation of Film Clubs. It caps off a good few months for the film which continues to win awards on the circuit already scooping the likes of the Audience Award in Warsaw.

Tallinn’s audience award went to the massively popular Belgian film The Broken Circle Breakdown [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Felix van Groeningen
interview: Felix Van Groeningen
interview: Felix Van Groeningen
film profile] by Felix Van Groeningen and the Black Nights Film Festival Lifetime achievement award was received the auteur behind such films as Mephisto and Colonel Redl, Istvan Szabo.