NEW Delhi: ‘Selma’ received the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature while ‘Keep On Keepin’ On’ received the Audience Award for Best Documentary feature, both sponsored by Mercedes Benz, at the 26th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival.
‘Leviathan’ received the FIPRESCI Prize given by the International federation of film critics while Haluk Bilginer and Anne Dorval received the FIPRESCI Acting Prizes.
‘No One’s Child’ was awarded New Voices/New Visions Award; ‘Flowers’ got the Cine Latino Award; ‘Walking Under Water’ won the John Schlesinger Award and ‘Corn Island’ got the HP Bridging The Borders Award.
The Festival held earlier screened 196 films from 65 countries, including 51 of the 83 foreign language entries for this year’s Academy Awards.
Festival director Darryl Macdonald said, “Eastern European filmmakers - both emerging and established - have utterly dominated our juried awards this year: first time feature director Vuk Rsumovic from Serbia takes the New Visions New Voices prize for No One’s Child, the Bridging the Borders award goes to Georgian director George Ovashvili’s Corn Island plus a special jury prize to Kosovo’s Three Windows and a Hanging directed by Isa Qosja, and the Schlesinger award goes to Polish director Eliza Kubarska for her debut documentary Walking Under Water. The power of stories from this region is palpable and infectious.”
The runner-up documentary film was ‘The Salt of the Earth’ (France). Popular documentary selections in alphabetical order included: ‘Back on Board: Greg Louganis’ (USA), ‘Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey’ (USA), ‘How I Got Over’ (USA), ‘Limited Partnership’ (USA), ‘The Breach’ (USA).
The winner and runner-ups were picked on the basis of over 70,000 ballots cast by audience members during the Festival. Both winners received the John Kennedy Statue (“The Entertainer”) specially designed for the Festival.
The 2015 FIPRESCI jury members were Ella Taylor (film critic), Michael Oleszczyk (film critic and scholar) and Ernesto Diezmartínez Guzman (columnist and author).
