(MENAFN- Arab Times) "The Embrace of the Serpent," Colombian director Ciro Guerra's visually rich, black-and-white adventure saga about the ravages of colonialism in the Amazon, won the top Art Cinema Award at the 47th Directors' Fortnight at Cannes on Friday.
A follow-up to Guerra's 2009 Un Certain Regard entry, "The Wind Journeys," "Embrace of the Serpent" (which is being sold by Films Boutique) follows the parallel journeys of two different ethnologists, both searching for a rare flower deemed sacred by Colombia's indigenous population.
Along with Thursday's honors for the Critics' Week entries "Paulina" (from Argentina's Santiago Mitre) and "Land and Shade" (from Colombia's Cesar Acevedo), the victory for Guerra's film suggests it's been a particularly strong festival for Latin American cinema, despite initial concerns that the region might be underrepresented, at least in the official selection.
The Fortnight's SACD Prize, presented every year to a French-language film by the Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers, was awarded to "My Golden Days," Arnaud Desplechin's emotionally resonant coming-of-age prequel to his 1996 Cannes entry, "My Life, or " How I Got Into an Argument."
The award represents a vindication of sorts for the veteran French auteur, whose film premiered to widespread acclaim in Directors' Fortnight after having been denied a slot in the official competition.
Marks
"My Golden Days," which is being sold internationally by Wild Bunch, marks the screen debuts of young leads Quentin Dolmaire and Lou Roy-Lecollinet. The film opened in French theaters on Wednesday.
"Mustang," a debut feature from Turkey's Deniz Gamze Erguven, won the Europa Cinemas Label for best European film in the Fortnight. The film, which is sold and co-produced by Kinology, is set in a remote Black Sea village where five young sisters are forced to suppress their blossoming sexuality. Cohen Media Group acquired North American rights to the film this week, following its festival screenings.
Under the leadership of artistic director Eduoard Waintrop, the Directors' Fortnight enjoyed perhaps its buzziest, best-received selection in years, benefiting in no small part from films, like "My Golden Days," which opted for an official-selection alternative after being turned down for competition.
The program's other major get in this regard was "Arabian Nights," Miguel Gomes' sweepingly ambitious six-part trilogy about social and economic woes in his native Portugal, which screened over three separate days of the Fortnight.
Besides Desplechin, the Fortnight had another French heavyweight in Philippe Garrel, whose black-and-white adultery drama "In the Shadow of Women" was well received in its opening-night slot. Other popular titles included Jaco Van Dormael's religious satire "The Brand New Testament"; Jeremy Saulnier's gory thriller "Green Room"; and Fernando Leon de Aranoa's Balkan war comedy "A Perfect Day," starring Benicio Del Toro and Tim Robbins, which was picked up by IFC during the fest.
A woman has topped a competition at this year's Cannes, and with a stirring woman's drama to boot.
"Share," a short from American Pippa Bianco, a student at AFI's Directing Workshop for Women, took the top prize Friday at the Cannes' Cinefondation Selection, the world's highest-profile film school student competition.
Also written by Bianco, and short by Cinefondation standards € only 11 minutes € produced by Tyler Byrne, Carly Hugo and Danielle Oexmann stars Taissa Farmiga ("American Horror Story") as a 15-year-old girl who returns to school after someone shares an explicit video of her on the Internet.
Chile's Ignacio Juricic Merillan, a student at the film and TV faculty of the Universidad de Chile, took the Selection second prize, for "Lost Queens," about a Rodrigo, an 18-year-old who's arrested in a televised raid of a club where he works as a drag queen, and fears his family will see him on TV. Accepting the award, Juricic Merillan dedicated it to the LGBT people who suffer physical violence.
Cinefondation Selection's third prize went ex-aequeo to Russian Maria Guskova, a student at Russia's Screenwriters and Film Directors High Courses, and Ian Garrido Lopez at Barcelona's Escac.
The Cinefondation is about individual talent, said its jury president Abderrrahmane Sissako, director of the Academy Award-nominated "Timbuktu," which swept France's Cesar's this year. That said, "Victor," like "Lost Queens" and "Share," comments on contemporary society, here in the case of a girl, who lives in the provinces, but lives out her life in Madrid as a guy. "Erkin" turns on a man who, having been released from jail, seeks forgiveness from the father of the man he accidently killed.
Gilles Jacob, Cinefondation president, introduced the Cinefondation Selection awards delivering five brief tips to filmmakers. The last was to forget the first four pieces of advice and be oneself.
Beyond Sissako, the Cinefondation jury was made up of two key members of France's exciting generation of distaff directors, Rebecca Zlotowski and Joanna Hadjithomas, Belgian actress Cecile de France, and Polish actor Daniel Olbrychski.
The 18 film students were chosen from 1,593 candidates from 381 schools. The key to the Cinefondation is the selection, said Sissako.
Talking to Variety about films schools, he added: "I don't think film students nor film schools have changed that much, but what has changed in cinema is the ensemble of its context."
Film school films are a first step, where students learn to make films in a group, about team energy, said Sissako.
But some of their lessons are for life. At school, her learnt to think that you haven't learnt everything yet, you're not yet a filmmaker." Even now, after "Timbuktu," "every film is a still a re-beginning," he added.
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