Romania International Film Festival announces its winners

The eighth edition of Romania International Film Festival awarded Georgios Georgopoulos’s “Tungsten” (Greece, 2010) with the best long-reel award. Also, the organizers offered two career excellence awards to Hungarian director Judit Elek and Romanian director Radu Gabrea.

According Mediafax, the international jury believes that the winning film represents “a very good combination of directing, screenplay, editing and excellent acting.”

The jury special award went to Slava Ross’s “Siberia, Monamour” (Russia, 2011). Azerbaijan’s Murad Ibragimbekov won the best director award in the CineBlackSea competition for his film “I ne bylo lucse brata,” a coproduction between Azerbaijan, Russia and Bulgaria, “a mix between old and new cinema techniques, featuring beautiful images and an unusual and creative narrative line” as the international jury put it. Also, Menelaos Karamaghiolis from Greece won the jury’s special award in the same section, for his film “J.A.C.E.,” a coproduction between Greece, Portugal, Turkey, Netherlands and Macedonia.

For Woman in Cinema award, the winner was German production of Maggie Peren, who won the best director award for her “Die Farbe des Ozeans.” The jury’s special award in the same section went to America’s Caroline von Kuhn for her “Like the Water” (US, 2012). The award for the best actress was won by Germany’s Romanian-born Maria Dragus for her role in Emily Atef’s “Tote Mich” (France/Germany/Switzerland, 2012). The prize for the best actor went to Armenia’s Mikayel Poghosian for his role in Natalya Belyauskene’s “Yet’ye bolory” (Armenia, 2012), a film included in the CineBlackSea competition.

The best short-reel in the Docs&Shorts competition was Rami Alayan’s “Uzla That Al-Shams” (Palestine, 2011), while the prize for the best documentary in the same section went to Jana Richter’s and Rike Holtz’s “Die Größe des Menschen” (Germany, 2012).

Founded in 2005, Romania International Film Festival is the only international film festival that, from the very beginning, looked towards the Black Sea region’s film industry (Russia, Moldavian Republic, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece and Romania). Initially founded for the film productions mentioned above, due to it’s growth in 2009, another competition section was added – Woman in cinema.