THE AWARDS - 17th SOFIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL - www.siff.bg

The festival presented a total of 246 films from 49 countries from all over the world. Over 300 international guests came to Sofia, amongst them were directors, producers, festival directors as well as media and film experts.

The Award Ceremony took place on the 16^th of March in Hall 1 of the National Palace of Culture.

THE INTERNATIONAL JURY FOR FIRST AND SECOND FEATURE FILMS

Yesim Ustaoglu (Turkey) – Director, Head of the Jury

Mike Downey (UK) – Producer

Ada Condeescu (Romania) – Actress

Miroslav Momcilovic (Serbia) – Writer and Director

Konstantin Bojanov (Bulgaria) – Director and Visual Artist 

DECIDED

FOCUSFOX GRAND PRIX AWARD for best film in the International Competition for first and second films, amounted to 10,000 Euro in post-production services provided by the Hungarian studio Focusfox, went to ‘Oh, Boy’ (Germany) by director Jan Ole Gerster.

SPECIAL JURY AWARD went to ‘The Last Elvis’ (Argentina) by director Armando Bo.

AWARD FOR BEST DIRECTOR went to Adam Leon for his film ‘Gimme the Loot’ (USA).

THE AWARD FOR BEST BULGARIAN SHORT FILM, provided by Robert Bosch Foundation, LVT, Camera and Chuchkov Brothers, went to ‘The Paraffin Prince’ (Bulgaria) by director Pavel Vesnakov.

MILLENIUM AWARD FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY handed by the international jury president Kaarle Aho (producer, Finland) and members Ana Moreira (actress, Portugal) and Ilian Metev (director, Bulgaria), went to the film ‘The Machine which Makes Everything Disappear’ (Georgia-Germany) by Tinatin Gurchiani.

The Documentary Jury handed SPECIAL MENTION to the film ‘Tzvetanka’ (Sweden-Bulgaria) by Youlian Tabakov.

DOMAINE BOYAR AWARD FOR BEST BALKAN FILM handed by Balkan jury president Guorgy Durst (producer, Hungary) and members Rossitsa Valkanova (producer, Bulgaria) and Denis Cote (director and producer, Canada), went to ‘Beyond the Hill’ (Turkey-Greece) by director Emin Alper.

The Award of the Bulgarian Guild of Film Critics for film from the Balkan Competition went to ‘Araf – Somewhere in Between’ (Turkey-France-Germany) by Yesim Ustaoglu.

THE KCB CINELABS BULGARIA AWARD FOR BEST BULGARIAN FEATURE FILM handed by jury consisted of Tudor Giurgiu (Romania, director of Transilvania International Film Festival), Stefan Laudyn (Poland, director of Warsaw International Film Festival) and Elma Tataragic (Bosnia and Herzegovina, programmer of Sarajevo Film Festival), went to ‘Alienation’ (Bulgaria) by director Milko Lazarov and executive producer Christo Jivkov, production of Bulgarian National Film Television.

The FIPRESCI Jury members Alexandra Zavia (Austria), Eithne O’Neill (France), Penka Monova (Bulgaria) handed out the FIPRESCI Award to the film ‘A Month in Thailand’ (Romania) by Paul Negoescu.

THE AUDIENCE AWARD of the 17^th Sofia International Film Festival was chosen among the films in the International Competition and the Balkan Competition. The award went to ‘Circles’ (Serbia-Germany-France-Croatia-Slovenia) by Srdan Golubovic.

THE YOUNG JURY AWARD, presided by the actress Lidia Indjova, went to ‘The Last Elvis’ (Argentina) by Armando Bo as the best film in the International Competition.

The Association of Film Producers in Bulgaria presented SPECIAL AWARD to the Chief Executive Officer of Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung GmbH (MDM) - Manfred Schmidt – because of his and MDM’s persistent belief in quality of Bulgarian films and the fact that they supported the making of 12 Bulgarian films during the years.

At the 10^th edition of SOFIA MEETINGS the following awards were handed out:

BEST PITCHING AWARD in the ‘Second Films’ Programme, donated by Synchro Film, Video & Audio (VIENNA) was given to the producer of the film project KANARI by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson (director) and Tobias Munthe (producer), Iceland.

BEST PROJECT AWARD in the ‘Second Films’ Programme, donated by Digimage – LVT Post Production was given to the film project ‘ANOTHER PARADISE’ by Nana Janelidze (director) and Rusudan Glurjidze (producer), Georgia.

BEST PITCHING AWARD in the ‘Plus Minus One’ Programme, donated by Focusfox Studio (Hungary) was given to the film project ‘LIGNITE’ by Gregory Rentis (director) and Maria Tsigka (producers), Greece.

BEST PROJECT AWARD in the ‘Plus Minus One’ Programme, donated by LVT Sofia Post Production was given to the film project ‘THE LESSON’ by Kristina Grozeva (director and producer), Petar Valchanov (director and producer) and Magdelena  Ilieva (producer), Bulgaria.

Within the framework of the 17^th Sofia International Film Festival the SOFIA AWARD of the Sofia Municipality for contribution to world cinema was presented to:

ITZHAK FINZI, actor (Bulgaria)

COSTA-GAVRAS, director (France)

PAOLO and VITTORIO TAVIANI, directors (Italy)

JOS STELLING, director (The Netherlands)