As John Malkovich watched clips selected from all his films and received the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema, everyone including myself, held their breath in anticipation of this year’s winner of the festival’s Official Selection in Competition.
When Marek Eben announced the name of the winner being the Belgian-Canadian co-production Un ange à la mer (Angel at Sea), my tip for the winner, I was especially pleased. The film is a real artistic masterpiece and will leave you moved for several hours after you leave the cinema. Olivier Gourmet also won the Best Actor award for the role of the manic-depressive father and shared the award with Paul Giamatti for his role in Cold Souls.
The Iranian film Bist (Twenty), a story about employees of an eatery in Iran, who have twenty days to sort out their lives, before its closure was awarded a special mention by the jury, a decision I respect the jury for.
Marko Škop’s Osadné, which tells the story of a small village in east Slovakia and the struggles of an Orthodox priest, the village’s long-serving mayor and a Ruthenian activist and their journey to Brussels, won the best documentary over 30 minutes award.
The winner of the special section characteristic for the Karlovy Vary festival East of the West was Poltory komnaty ili sentimentalnoje putěšestvije na rodinu (Room and a Half).
Paprika Steen was awarded a the best actress award for her intense performance as an actress trying to overcome an alcohol addiction in Applause, a film by the Danish director Martin Pieter Zandvliet.
The audience award went, as expected, to the lightly humorous Sipur Gadol (A Matter of Size), which Eva Zaoralová, the fest’s artistic director, said is a movie that perhaps interests the audience as they themselves solve similar problems in their everyday lives.
What a festival it has been and there’s much more to come in our special report in the next issue of the Prague Monitor Magazine.
