FENG XIAOGANG’S story of a Chinese woman’s journey in “I Am Not Madame Bovary” won the San Sebastian International Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Shell, on Saturday night.
“I have a lot of experience and a lot of habits. These habits can cage you. When I started this film, I tried to set these habits aside and try to work as if it were my directorial debut and do something courageous. I knew it was very risky,” Feng said. “I didn’t know if it was the right thing to do, but today the San Sebastian film festival gave me the answer with this prize for the best film.”
Fan Bingbing also picked up the best actress award for her role in Feng’s film.
Two popular Spanish entries in the official competition picked up prizes, with Eduard Fernandez taking the acting award for “Smoke and Mirrors” and Isabel Pena and Rodrigo Sorogoyen winning for the screenplay of “May God Save Us.”
But one of the real highlights of the evening was when Richard Gere came onstage to announce the Audience Award — Ken Loach’s “I, Daniel Blake” — reading in Spanish. Spanish distributors accepted the award on the director’s behalf, but Loach sent a video with the film’s team thanking the festival for the honor. Gere is in town for the special screening of “Time out of Mind,” in which he plays a homeless man.
Korean director Hong Sang-soo won the best director award for “Yourself and Yours.”
Earlier in the week, Santiago Estevez’s “Rey’s Education” won the coveted Films in Progress Industry award, which covers full post-production costs for the unfinished project. The film also secures a slot in the festival’s official lineup for next year, an important platform for Latin American cinema.
Pepa San Martin’s feature debut “Rara,” which landed one of the biggest sales of the market and enjoyed huge buzz throughout the festival as the winner of the LGBT Sebastiane Latin award, snagged the juicy US$39,000 Horizons Award for what the jury called “an exceptionally beautifully shot film with an intelligent and sensitive script.”
(SD-Agencies)
|
