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Today's Zaman, Turkey
Sept 8 2014
`Sivas' takes Special Jury Prize, big winner Roy Andersson in Venice
Young Turkish director Kaan Müjdeci's debut feature `Sivas' won two
awards at the 71st edition of the Venice Film Festival, including the
Special Jury Prize, while the Golden Lion for the best film went to
Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson's offbeat comedy `A Pigeon Sat on a
Branch Reflecting on Existence.'
Müjdeci's take on the relationship between an 11-year-old child and a
fighting dog in a rural area of the Anatolian province of Yozgat was
awarded with the Special Prize on Saturday at the closing ceremony of
the festival.
The film also earned child actor DoÄ?an Ä°zci the best actor award as
the 15-member international film critics jury of Premio Bastio D'Oro
deemed the 11-year-old actor worthy of the award for his portrayal of
the character Aslan in `Sivas'on Friday, according to a press release
the publicist of the film issued on Friday. Ä°zci, who was not in
Venice to receive his award, won the prize for his professional and
spontaneous acting.
Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Ã-mer Çelik offered his
congratulations to the cast and the crew of the film via a message he
tweeted on Saturday. `Our cinema is entrusted upon safe hands,
youngsters,' he said. `Turkish cinema is gaining big success on its
100th anniversary. Another international award came from Venice,
following Cannes,' the minister tweeted as well, referring to Nuri
Bilge Ceylan's Palme d'Or win for his `KıÅ? Uykusu' (Winter Sleep).
Andersson, whose films have won a cult following in Europe, endeared
himself to the Italian audience at the awards ceremony in the Palace
of the Cinema, saying he had been inspired by Italian director
Vittorio De Sica, particularly by his 1948 film `Bicycle Thieves,'
Reuters reported on Saturday. `It's so full of empathy and it's so
humanistic and I think that's what movies should be, in the service of
humanism,' he said as he accepted the award, adding, `So I will go
further and try to work and make as good movies as Vittorio De Sica."
Andersson's film, the third in a trilogy, is a series of surreal
vignettes, including at the outset `three meetings with death' and
later a cavalry parade by Sweden's 17th-century military King Charles
XII set in a bleak modern landscape.
The award for best director went to 77-year-old Andrei Konchalovsky
for his film `The Postman's White Nights,' which is set in a lakeside
village in the Russian countryside and follows the lives of local
people, sometimes filmed through hidden cameras. Konchalovsky, who has
made films in Hollywood as well as in Russia, and whose film in Venice
won rave but also lukewarm reviews, mostly for its lack of a
discernible plot, said it was a `strange sensation' to receive the
award. `I will tell you I think in all of us artists who are doing
some film, there is still a kid hiding somewhere inside of us,' he
said. `Thank you very much and tomorrow we go and pretend we are
adults.' He said it was not the first time he had filmed ordinary
people, some of whom had said if they'd known he was shooting they
`would have used makeup or at least have been sober.'
American director Joshua Oppenheimer's `The Look of Silence,' a
documentary about confronting the perpetrators of massacres in
Indonesia in the 1960s following a failed coup, got the Jury Prize for
best film.
The Italian film `Hungry Hearts,' directed by Saverio Costanzo, who
said he made the film for under 1 million euros ($1.30 million), took
the best actor and best actress awards. They went to Adam Driver, who
will be in the next `Star Wars' sagas, and Alba Rohrwacher, in the
story of a New York wife obsessed with cleanliness when her baby is
born.
The best young actor award went to Romain Paul for his performance in
French director Alix Delaporte's `Le dernier coup de marteau' (The
Last Blow of the Hammer) as a young boy torn between remaining
faithful to the dying mother who has raised him or going to live with
the father he has never known. He said working in the film had been a
thrill and that winning the award was `a great honor but it's
stressful.'
Iranian director Rakhshan Bani-Etemad's `Ghesseha' (Tales),
chronicling the hardships of life in Tehran, won the award for best
screenplay.
The world's oldest film festival effectively shut out the American
feature films in its main competition, also failing to give awards to
the festival opener `Birdman,' the drone pilot drama `Good Kill,' Al
Pacino's portrayal of a grumpy old man in `Manglehorn' and the Florida
house repossession drama `99 Homes.'
Scott Roxborough, European film critic for The Hollywood Reporter,
said that in rejecting `Birdman' the festival had stayed true to form,
supporting `the grand tradition of European art house cinema.'
Another film that returned home from the festival empty-handed is
German-Turkish director Fatih Akın's `The Cut,' one of the two Turkish
productions at the main competition, which follows the fictional story
of an Armenian blacksmith named Nazaret Manoogian who is separated
from his wife and twin daughters during atrocities against Ottoman
Armenians in 1915.
http://www.todayszaman.com/arts-culture_sivas-takes-special-jury-prize-big-winner-roy-andersson-in-venice_357972.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Sept 8 2014
`Sivas' takes Special Jury Prize, big winner Roy Andersson in Venice
Young Turkish director Kaan Müjdeci's debut feature `Sivas' won two
awards at the 71st edition of the Venice Film Festival, including the
Special Jury Prize, while the Golden Lion for the best film went to
Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson's offbeat comedy `A Pigeon Sat on a
Branch Reflecting on Existence.'
Müjdeci's take on the relationship between an 11-year-old child and a
fighting dog in a rural area of the Anatolian province of Yozgat was
awarded with the Special Prize on Saturday at the closing ceremony of
the festival.
The film also earned child actor DoÄ?an Ä°zci the best actor award as
the 15-member international film critics jury of Premio Bastio D'Oro
deemed the 11-year-old actor worthy of the award for his portrayal of
the character Aslan in `Sivas'on Friday, according to a press release
the publicist of the film issued on Friday. Ä°zci, who was not in
Venice to receive his award, won the prize for his professional and
spontaneous acting.
Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Ã-mer Çelik offered his
congratulations to the cast and the crew of the film via a message he
tweeted on Saturday. `Our cinema is entrusted upon safe hands,
youngsters,' he said. `Turkish cinema is gaining big success on its
100th anniversary. Another international award came from Venice,
following Cannes,' the minister tweeted as well, referring to Nuri
Bilge Ceylan's Palme d'Or win for his `KıÅ? Uykusu' (Winter Sleep).
Andersson, whose films have won a cult following in Europe, endeared
himself to the Italian audience at the awards ceremony in the Palace
of the Cinema, saying he had been inspired by Italian director
Vittorio De Sica, particularly by his 1948 film `Bicycle Thieves,'
Reuters reported on Saturday. `It's so full of empathy and it's so
humanistic and I think that's what movies should be, in the service of
humanism,' he said as he accepted the award, adding, `So I will go
further and try to work and make as good movies as Vittorio De Sica."
Andersson's film, the third in a trilogy, is a series of surreal
vignettes, including at the outset `three meetings with death' and
later a cavalry parade by Sweden's 17th-century military King Charles
XII set in a bleak modern landscape.
The award for best director went to 77-year-old Andrei Konchalovsky
for his film `The Postman's White Nights,' which is set in a lakeside
village in the Russian countryside and follows the lives of local
people, sometimes filmed through hidden cameras. Konchalovsky, who has
made films in Hollywood as well as in Russia, and whose film in Venice
won rave but also lukewarm reviews, mostly for its lack of a
discernible plot, said it was a `strange sensation' to receive the
award. `I will tell you I think in all of us artists who are doing
some film, there is still a kid hiding somewhere inside of us,' he
said. `Thank you very much and tomorrow we go and pretend we are
adults.' He said it was not the first time he had filmed ordinary
people, some of whom had said if they'd known he was shooting they
`would have used makeup or at least have been sober.'
American director Joshua Oppenheimer's `The Look of Silence,' a
documentary about confronting the perpetrators of massacres in
Indonesia in the 1960s following a failed coup, got the Jury Prize for
best film.
The Italian film `Hungry Hearts,' directed by Saverio Costanzo, who
said he made the film for under 1 million euros ($1.30 million), took
the best actor and best actress awards. They went to Adam Driver, who
will be in the next `Star Wars' sagas, and Alba Rohrwacher, in the
story of a New York wife obsessed with cleanliness when her baby is
born.
The best young actor award went to Romain Paul for his performance in
French director Alix Delaporte's `Le dernier coup de marteau' (The
Last Blow of the Hammer) as a young boy torn between remaining
faithful to the dying mother who has raised him or going to live with
the father he has never known. He said working in the film had been a
thrill and that winning the award was `a great honor but it's
stressful.'
Iranian director Rakhshan Bani-Etemad's `Ghesseha' (Tales),
chronicling the hardships of life in Tehran, won the award for best
screenplay.
The world's oldest film festival effectively shut out the American
feature films in its main competition, also failing to give awards to
the festival opener `Birdman,' the drone pilot drama `Good Kill,' Al
Pacino's portrayal of a grumpy old man in `Manglehorn' and the Florida
house repossession drama `99 Homes.'
Scott Roxborough, European film critic for The Hollywood Reporter,
said that in rejecting `Birdman' the festival had stayed true to form,
supporting `the grand tradition of European art house cinema.'
Another film that returned home from the festival empty-handed is
German-Turkish director Fatih Akın's `The Cut,' one of the two Turkish
productions at the main competition, which follows the fictional story
of an Armenian blacksmith named Nazaret Manoogian who is separated
from his wife and twin daughters during atrocities against Ottoman
Armenians in 1915.
http://www.todayszaman.com/arts-culture_sivas-takes-special-jury-prize-big-winner-roy-andersson-in-venice_357972.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress