All white on the night: Blancanieves takes film festival top prize

Blancanieves, directed by Pablo Berger, won the best film trophy at the Bucharest International Film Festival on Sunday. The jury praised the Spanish movie for “a successful combination of an imaginative homage to silent cinema and an update of a famous children’s fairy-tale”.

The best director prize went to Amir Manor (pictured) for Epilogue, “a heartbreaking portrait of a twilight life full of disappointments and deceptions”. Sightseers, by British director Ben Wheatley, took the award for best screenplay, in tribute to “the sardonic and very original way that it relates a particular aspect of the British mentality”.

The audience prize went to local director Iulia Rugina, for Love Building, which the jury singled out for a special mention “for the energy and enthusiasm of the young team who worked on it”. French-Canadian co-production Wrong, directed by Quentin Dupieux, claimed the critics’ prize in recognition of its “pure cinema, despite the fact that its author is not a filmmaker by training, but a DJ with vision”.

Directors Elisabeta Bostan and Amos Gitai were also presented with awards for excellence for their contribution to cinema.

The Bucharest International Film Festival, which is organized by the Cultural Foundation CHARTA, with the support of the National Cinematography Center (CNC) and the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR), ran from 15-21 April.