Greek film eg Giorgos Lanthimos' film 'Dogtooth' won the 'Kingfisher Award' first prize at the 21st Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFE) held in Ljubljana 10th to 22nd of November 2010, in Slovenian capital, as explained by judges Goran Vojnović, Charlie Cockey, Frank L. Stavik the film has been awarded due to a creating “a most unique air of disquietude. Executed with utter meticulousness, the film has been written and directed with accomplished precision. Communicating its message with ruthless immediacy, it opens windows to various debates. The work by does not appeal with its unspoken ambiguity, but, instead, astounds with its startling directness and clear vision of destructive isolation“ 'Dogtooth's an utopian family drama about teenagers growing up in an isolated family with parent’s desperate wish to protect them from any external influences: drama that already won awards on other international film festivals, there including one in Cannes - the best foreign language film at the Academy Awards. „The idea for Dogtooth came from speculating about the future of family. How would it evolve in the future if it evolved at all( and what would happen if this social organism ceased existing as we know it? What would someone do to preserve at any cost and what would that do to the people involved? How distorted can bodies and minds become after being confined and shaped?“ said Yorgos Lanthimos about the film. Nothing is weird enough in nowadays! So does this. A black-comic drama that talks about family dysfunction, a cruel saga about self-harm and bizarre, an absurdist film for particular audience and an intimate film of psychological realism. The film contents violence, bizarre sexuality and unexpressed grief points, or how a child protection issue of one family can turn into an unsettling incestuous relationship.


Also, Special Mentions for LIFFE 2010 went to a Mexican film To The Sea (Almar) by Pedro Gonzales-Rubio and The Wind Journeys (Los viajes del viento) by Ciro Guerra for "2 exquisite films, which share a strong spiritual, philosophical and poetic kinship". DRAGON Audience Award went to a Serbian film Technotise: Edit and I directed by Aleksa Gajić which received 4,73 points from the Slovenian audience. FIPRESCI Prize went to Samantha Morton’s The Unloved chosen by the international jury Melis Behlil, Michel Euvrard and Matic Majcen, “for its ability to convey empathy through the use of images and particularly sound, and its questioning of the notion of home,” said the FIPRESCI Jury. And Best Short Film Award for A Bike Ride by Bernard Attal for “the short film jury gives the award to A Bike Ride, a simple and touching film that deals with profound issues in a subtle and understated way,” said the international jury for best short film Silva Čušin, Karpo Godina and Chris Fujiwara.

Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFe) was first time launched in 1989 as the Film Art Festival Ljubljana. The festival is organized by Cankarjev dom Cultural and Congress Centre, Film Programme, and the director of the festival is Simon Popek, but films are also screened at Slovenian Cinematheque Art Movies of Ljubljana, Kinodvor Cinema and Kinoklub Vič. Films from Cannes, Rotterdam, Berlin are brought to a festival, to average 50 000 trusty cinema audience of Ljubljana. The main purpose of the festival is to introduce Slovenian audiences with non-Hollywood films, not to be seen at commercial Slovenian cinemas. The exquisite films chosen for this festival, for a two cinema weeks of Ljubljana are split on genre-oriented sections (Extravagance), the mark of a master (Kings & Queens), innovative films (Against the Wind) and buzz films (Focus). The main prize is the Kingfisher Award meant to the best new film from the Perspectives section and the audience chooses voting the Audience Award.

Radmila Djurica
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