SETimes.comBalkans again bask in the spotlight at Cannes Film Festival
16/06/2008
A number of regional filmmakers and actors won awards and nominations at the latest edition of the prestigious film festival in Cannes.
By Paul Ciocoiu for Southeast European Times in Bucharest – 16/06/08
Romanian cinema won an award at the Cannes International Film Festival for the second consecutive year, with Marian Muresan's "Megatron" taking the Palme D'Or for Best Short Film. The 31-year-old director said that he expected an award, because the jury and the audiences were attracted to the movie.
"I expected it somehow. I believed we had some chance to win," Muresan said of his film, which beat out eight others. This is the third Palme D'Or for a Romanian short film, after Ion Popescu Gopo's "A Brief History" and Catalin Mitulescu's "Traffic". Muresan has already participated in several international competitions with his films "The Amateur", "Family Portrait" and "Happy Birthday".
The 15-minute-long "Megatron" tells the story of an eight-year-old village boy who goes with his mother to a Bucharest McDonald's for his birthday. Once in Bucharest, the boy looks for his father. The story -- depicting a journey to Bucharest that slowly turns into a journey in search of a father -- has only two characters, the boy and the mother, played by Maxim Trinu and Gabriela Crisu. The movie premiered in Romania at the 7th Transylvania International Film Festival.
The Best Director award went to Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan for his family drama, "Three Monkeys". This is Ceylan's third award at the French festival after he received the 2003 Jury Grand Prize for "Distant" and the 2006 FIPRESCI Movie Critics' Award for "Climates", according to the Turkish Daily News.
"I am dedicating this prize to my lonely and beautiful country, which I passionately love," he said after receiving the prize from actress Faye Dunaway. "The film is about life, about one's inner world, about many things," explained Ceylan, director of six films so far.
The International Critics' Week Grand Prize went to Bosnian director Aida Begic's first film, "Snow", a Bosnia and Herzegovina-Germany-France-Iran co-production. It deals with the aftermath of a Balkan war in an isolated and conflict-ravaged mountainous village.
Last but not least, Kosovo-born actress Arta Dobroshi earned a nomination for Best Actress for her role in "Lorna's Silence", produced by Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes, who won for Best Screenplay. The film explores the difficult path of an Albanian girl in Belgium striving to obtain citizenship while making compromises.