ADFF Announces 2011 Black Pearl Awards for Feature Films
Jim Poe
21.10.2011 - On Friday night, the Abu Dhabi
Film Festival announced the winners of the 2011 Black Pearl Awards
for feature-length films. Chicken with Plums, the
acclaimed romantic fantasia set in pre-revolutionary Iran from
French artists and filmmakers Marjane Satrapi and Vincent
Paronnaud, won the award for Best Narrative Film. Free
Men, Moroccan director Ismaël Ferrouki's tale of Muslim
resistance in Nazi-occupied Paris, won Best Director from the Arab
World. Position Among the Stars, the groundbreaking
documentary about Indonesia from Abu Dhabi-based Dutch director
Leonard Retel Helmrich, won Best Documentary.
Woody Harrelson won Best Actor in the Narrative Competition for
his role in US writer/director Oren Moverman's thriller
Rampart. Jayashree Basavaraj won Best Actress in the
Narrative Competition for her portrayal of an elderly Indian widow
who befriends a South African orphan in Avie Luthra's
Lucky.
Stories Only Exist When Remembered, the narrative debut
from Brazilian filmmaker Julia Murat, won Best Film in the New
Horizons Competition for first- or second-time feature
directors.
A Separation, the psychological drama from Iranian
director Asghar Farhadi, who was named Variety's Middle
East Filmmaker of the Year this week, won the Special Jury Prize in
the Narrative Competition.
The awards were handed out in a gala ceremony at Abu Dhabi's
Fairmont Bab Al Bahr hotel. Among the international stars
participating in the ceremony were Tilda Swinton, Hend Sabry,
British actor and director Rupert Friend, and Egyptian star and
producer Bushra.
Swinton, star of The Deep End, Michael Clayton
and the Chronicles of Narnia series, and whose latest
film, We Need to Talk About Kevin, screened at this year's
ADFF, received a Black Pearl Career Excellence award from the
Festival. Friend, known for his roles in Pride &
Prejudice and The Young Victoria, was on hand to
introduce a special screening of his award-winning directorial
debut, the short comedy Steve, starring Colin Firth and
Keira Knightley.
Other stars in attendance included Lotfi Abdelli, Nidal Al
Achkar, Faris El Hilo, Sami Kaftan, Saba Mubarek and Tareq Al
Ali.
The event marked a formal conclusion to a successful fifth
edition of ADFF. Screenings continue on Saturday, the last day of
the Festival - including special screenings of competition
winners Stories Only Exist When
emembered, Chicken with Plums, The Last Mountain and El Gusto at Abu Dhabi Theater.
As it did last year, ADFF's SANAD postproduction and development
fund supported Black Pearl winners. Safinez Bousbia won Best New
Director in the Documentary Competition for her film El
Gusto; while the Film Clinic won Best Producer from the Arab
World in the same category for their omnibus film Tahrir 2011:
The Good, the Bad and the Dictator.
Three separate juries decided on the Competition winners this
week. The Narrative Competition jury president was Syrian filmmaker
Nabil Maleh; the Documentary Competition jury president was
Egyptian-Canadian director Tahani Rached; and the New Horizons jury
was headed by Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi.
A jury of graduate students from the Masdar Institute awarded
The Last Mountain, US director Bill Haney's documentary
about the coal industry, Best Film in the Our World competition.
Skeem, the South African action comedy directed by Tim
Greene, won the Audience Choice Award.
Among the collateral awards given at the Festival, The FIPRESCI
Prize from the International Federation of Film Critics went to
Bousbia's El Gusto - her second prize on the night. The
NETPAC Award for outstanding Asian film went to Atwal's
Marathon Boy. It her second prize as well, as she won Best
New Director in the Documentary Category.
The 2011 Black Pearl Awards are:
Narrative
Competition
Best Narrative Film:Chicken with
Plums, directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
(France, Germany, Belgium)
Special Jury Award:A Separation,
directed by Asghar Farhadi (Iran)
Best Director from the Arab World: Ismaël
Ferroukhi, Free Men (France, Morocco)
"For his excellent telling of an unknown and important story"
Best Producer from the Arab World: Ziad Hamzeh
and Ridha Behi, Always Brando (Tunisia)
"In recognition of their determination to realize their cinematic
dream against all odds"
Best Actor: Woody Harrelson, Rampart
(USA)
"For his riveting and complex performance as a derailed LA
cop"
Best Actress: Jayashree Basavaraj,
Lucky (South Africa)
Jury Special Mention: Soufia Issami, Mouna
Bahmad, Nouza Akel and Sara Betioui, actresses, On the
Edge (Morocco, France, Germany, UAE)
"For their impressively authentic performances"
Narrative Competition jury: Nabil Maleh, Syrian
filmmaker (president); Marianne Denicourt, French actress; Lucinda
Englehart, British producer; Laila Eloui, Egyptian actress; George
Sluizer, Dutch director
New Horizons Competition
Best Film:Stories Only Exist When
Remembered, directed by Julie Murat (Brazil, Argentina,
France)
"It was a unanimous decision by the jury to award this the Best
Film prize. It's a film that opened a window onto a new perspective
of both life and death. At once subtle but full of emotion, the
story is universal and resonates days after the viewing
experience."
Special Jury Award:Alms for a Blind
Horse, directed by Gurvinder Singh (India)
"For its visual style and a poetic journey indicating a new and
intriguing voice to emerge from the cinematic landscape of
India"
Best Director from the Arab World: Amr Salama,
Asma'a (Egypt)
"For the bold and important choice of a topic that will engage
conversation about the significance of cinema in raising
awareness"
Best Producer from the Arab World: Souney
Kadouh, This Narrow Place (Lebanon, USA)
"For an independent spirit and a determined effort"
Best Actor: Maged El Kedwany, Asma'a
(Egypt)
"A natural and restrained performance bringing to life a character
with human complexity and emotional conflict"
Best Actress (split prize):
Memona Mohamed, Tears of Sand (Spain)
"For skillful achievement and a graceful simplicity in
creating a complex, understated and unexpected performance"
Sonia Guedes, Stories Exist Only When Remembered
(Brazil, Argentina, France)
"For an elegant performance played with a haunting resonance and
ageless gravitas"
New Horizons Competition
jury:Bahman Ghobadi, Iranian director
(president); Paul Baboudjian, Lebanese filmmaker; Marwan Hamed,
Egyptian director; Annemarie Jacir, Palestinian writer/director;
Aimee Mullins, US athlete/model/actress
Documentary Competition
Best Documentary:Position
Among the Stars, directed by Leonard Retel Helmrich
(Netherlands)
"Its distinguished cinematic language, the visualization and the
way the life of a family is presented in this film takes us to
their world and lets us experience the complexities of the society
they lived in - with a sense of humor that turns their tragedy into
happy moments."
Special Jury Award:The
Tiniest Place, directed by Tatiana Huezo (Mexico)
"This film uses the camera as a professional, artistic means of
telling a story in a different way, building a strong cinematic
language that helps get to the depth of a tragic experience, yet
doesn't simply dwell in tragedy."
Best New Director: Gemma
Atwal, Marathon Boy (India, UK, USA)
"This film demonstrates a strong ability to build a scenario that
manipulates the expectations of the scenes and its relation with
the characters. Throughout the film the audience takes a long, deep
look at an individual life, exploring it step by step, and living
through all the happy and sad moments."
Best Director from the Arab
World: Safinez Bousbia, El Gusto
(France, Algeria, Ireland, UAE)
"For its accomplishments in linking the past with the present,
linking the characters with the scenes, and using the screen to
make a dream come true"
Best Producer from the Arab
World: Film Clinic, Tahrir 2011: The Good,
the Bad and the Politician (Egypt, UAE)
"For the work and effort done to let the audience have a closer
look at a historical moment that the Arab world is living
currently, through three different and complete points of view"
Documentary Competition jury:
Tahani Rached, Egyptian-Canadian writer/director (president); Anwar
Jamal, Indian director; Victor Kossakovsky, Russian director;
Mahmoud Al Massad, Jordanian filmmaker; Mostafa Messnaoui, Moroccan
writer and film critic
Our World
Best Film:The Last Mountain, directed
by Bill Haney (USA)
"A powerful documentary that shows a community living next to a
mountain as it fights to save their environment from a damaging
coal company and their own government. The documentary shows both
the problem and the consequences and proposes a renewable energy
solution."
The Our World jury was made up of graduate
students from Abu Dhabi's Masdar Institute of Science and
Technology (MIST):Khasiaba Al Dalel, Yu-Kuang Lin
and Mohamed Asaad Taher. Dr. Amal Al Ghaferi served as advisor.
Audience Choice
Award:Skeem, directed by Timothy Greene
(South Africa)
NETPAC Award:Marathon
Boy, directed by Gemma Atwal "For the great Indian story of a
child told locally, but brilliantly integrated into the problems of
Asian societies"
FIPRESCI Prize:El
Gusto, directed by Safinez Bousbia (France, Algeria, Ireland,
UAE)