24 October 2011

ABU DHABI: An innocent observer could be forgiven for thinking that The Abu Dhabi Film Festival, which ran in the Emirati capital from Oct. 13-22, is the most prize-riddled of the region’s international film events.

ADFF staged not one but two awards ceremonies for this year’s competition films and handed out a couple more prizes for good measure. Festival scuttlebutt, utterly unconfirmed, had it that ADFF 2011 had half the budget of the 2010 edition. If so, the budget cuts weren’t reflected in the awards, which remain solvent.

At the main award ceremony Friday evening, ADFF handed out its 2011 Black Pearl awards for its main contest, the international Narrative Feature Competition, which this year screened 16 films from 11 countries. Seven of these were made by filmmakers from the Middle East – three from Morocco, three from Iran and one from Tunisia.

There was a notable noncontroversy around one of the Iranian films – Abdolreza Kahani’s “Absolutely Tame as a Horse,” slated to have its world premiere at ADFF – which was quietly excised from the festival competition, screening schedule and website.

The two remaining Iranian works proceeded to take the two top narrative feature film awards. The prize for best film (with a purse of $100,000) went to “Chicken with Plums.” Co-written and directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud this enthusiastic embrace of nostalgia was adapted from Satrapi’s 2004 graphic novel of the same name (translated into English in 2006). Satrapi and Paronnaud are responsible for the film version of Satrapi’s earlier graphic novel, the 2007 hit “Persepolis,” to which the new film cries out to be seen as the follow-up. Evidently ADFF’s jury answered the call.

The jury also gave a Special Jury Award (worth $50,000) to Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation,” the most-accomplished work in this competition, which has been flooring festival audiences since February when it debuted at the Berlinale and walked off with the three top prizes.

The award for Best Director from the Arab World (and a $50,000 purse) went to Ismael Ferroukhi for his “Free Men,” his follow-up to (and surprising departure from) his 2004 art house hit “Le Grande Voyage.” The new film sees the France-based Moroccan writer-director tell a story of how France’s North African immigrant community participated in the anti-Nazi resistance. This historical dramatization territory has so far been ruled by Ferroukhi’s countryman Rachid Bouchareb, whose features “Days of Glory” (2006) and “Outside the Law” (2010) have been bent on writing the North African community into France’s early 20th century history.

ADFF’s jury said they named Ferroukhi best Arab director for “his excellent telling of an unknown and important story.”

The prize for Best Producer from the Arab World (worth $25,000) went to Tunisian duo Ziad Hamzeh and Ridha Behi, for their work on Behi’s “Always Brando.” The jury explained that they wanted to recognize Hamzeh and Behi’s “determination to realize their cinematic dream against all odds.” The “against all odds” reference was apropos of this disappointing effort by the otherwise esteemed Behi.

ADFF’s Best Actor award (worth $20,000) went to “Cheers” veteran Woody Harrelson for his work in Oren Moverman’s “Rampart,” which the jury justly termed “riveting.” The Best Actress prize went to Jayashree Basavaraj for her work in Avie Luthra’s “Lucky.”

A Jury Special Mention was granted to Soufia Issami, Mouna Bahmad, Nouza Akel and Sara Betioui – the four young actresses “who gave impressively authentic performances” in the film “On the Edge.” The feature-length fiction debut of Leila Kilani, “On the Edge” was the strongest and most daring of the Moroccan films in this year’s narrative competition.

ADFF’s 2011 FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) Award focused on Arab films in the Narrative Feature Competition, Documentary Feature Competition and the New Horizons Competition and ultimately awarded Safinez Bousbia’s “El Gusto.”

ADFF’s 2011 NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) Award went to Gemma Atwal’s “Marathon Boy.”

These were only the main feature-length film prizes. The previous day, ADFF had doled out an equal number of prizes for its various short film competitions – the Emirates Film Competition (comprised of 44 short films from all over the Gulf region, including 29 from the UAE and ADFF’s 2011 International Short Film Competition (featuring 31 films from 23 countries, as well as two newly launched awards for producers of short films).

ADFF’s New Horizons Competition, a parallel competition for feature films by first- and second-time filmmakers, screened 12 films from 11 countries, five of which are nominally from this region.

The prize for Best Film (and a modest purse of $100,000) went to Brazil’s Julia Murat for her gorgeous debut feature “Stories Only Exist When Remembered.”

“It was a unanimous decision by the jury to award this the Best Film prize,” the jury explained. “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.”

A Special Jury Award (worth $50,000) went to “Alms for a Blind Horse,” by India’s Gurvinder Singh.

New Horizon’s $50,000-prize for Best Director from the Arab World went to Egypt’s Amr Salama for “Asma’a,” a fiction about a poverty-stricken, AIDS-afflicted young mother (Hind Sabri) who decides to go on television to talk about how doctors refuse to give her medical treatment.

The $25,000 prize for Best Producer from the Arab World went to Lebanese-American writer-director-producer Sooney Kadouh for “This Narrow Place”

News Horizon’s $20,000 prize for Best Actor went to Egyptian comic actor Maged El Kedwani for his serious work in “Asma’a,” which the jury lauded as a “natural and restrained performance bringing to life a character with human complexity and emotional conflict.”

The $20,000 award for Best Actress was shared by Sonia Guedes – for “an elegant performance played with a haunting resonance and ageless gravitas” – in Julia Murat’s “Stories Only Exist When Remembered” and Memona Mohamed, in Pedro Pérez Rosado’s “Tears of Sand.”

This year ADFF’s Documentary Feature Competition was comprised of 12 films from 11 countries, three from the Middle East.

The $100,000 Best Documentary prize went to “Position among the Stars” by Holland’s Leonard Retel Helmrich. A $50,000 Special Jury Award went to “The Tiniest Place” directed by Mexico’s Tatiana Huezo. The $50,000 award for Best New Director went to India’s Gemma Atwal for “Marathon Boy.”

The $50,000 prize for Best Director from the Arab World went to Safinez Bousbia for “El Gusto,” awarded 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.”

The $25,000 prize for Best Producer from the Arab World went to Egypt’s Mohamed Hefzy for “Tahrir 2011: The Good, the Bad & the Politician,” directed by Ayten Amin, Tamer Ezzat and Amr Salama. The jury lauded “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.”

New for 2011 was ADFF’s Our World Competition, which is meant to celebrate “films devoted to broadening public awareness of significant environmental issues.” Ten films from seven countries were screened, with the $15,000 prize for Best Film About Significant Environmental Issues going to “The Last Mountain,” directed by America’s Bill Haney.

ADFF’s $50,000 Audience Choice Award for 2011 went to “Skeem,” by South Africa’s Tim Greene.

Last but not least were ADFF’s Career Excellence Awards.

“This year,” announced ADFF executive director Peter Scarlet, “we are thrilled to present two Black Pearl Awards for Career Excellence to two major filmmaking talents from the U.K.: the luminous, piercingly intelligent and utterly unique screen presence that is Tilda Swinton, and the extraordinarily versatile, prolific and apparently indefatigable director, Michael Winterbottom.”

Winterbottom was in Abu Dhabi to present his most recent feature “Trishna,” starring Freida Pinto. Swinton’s most recent film, “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” enjoyed its Gulf premiere at ADFF.

Copyright The Daily Star 2011.