Presentation of the Cinefondation Awards
The Cinefondation Awards Ceremony took place yesterday at 16:30 in Salle Buñuel, followed by a screening of the films by the award winners. The 13 films competing for these awards were selected from among over 1,500 entries.
Before an electrified audience, Gilles Jacob, president of the Festival de Cannes, opened the ceremony by slyly saying that he already knew the results. Then he gave over his place on stage to the Cinefondation Jury, composed of Carlos Diegues, Dinara Droukarova, Marc Récha, Emmanuelle Devos and presided over by Atom Egoyan. Visibly disappointed that he could only award three prizes, Atom Egoyan made a point of commending Michaela Müller’s Miramare, “a wonderful work of animation”.
The 3rd prize was awarded as a tie between two short films: “I already am everything I want to have” (Ja vec jesam sve ono sto zelim da imam) by Dane Komljen and The Fifth Column (Hinkerort zorasune) by Vatche Boulghourjian. Short of breath, Dane Komljen thanked the Serbian Minister of Culture for paying for transferring his film onto 35 mm format.
The French film “Anywhere out of the World” (Coucou-les-nuages) by Vincent Cardon, won second prize. “We were really excited about this film!” Atom Egoyan called out over the audience’s applause.
Cinefondation’s first prize was awarded to Taulukauppiaat (The Painting Sellers), directed by Juho Kuosmanen. Very emotional over his victory, the young director said he was “too nervous to say anything”. In closing the ceremony, Gilles Jacob reminded the audience that winners of the Cinefondation’s first prize all automatically have their first feature films selected in the Festival. The President’s conclusion: “So it should not be hard to get funding for that!”
GF