Italian cinema Honour guest at 2006 Sevilla Fest

The Seville Film Festival, exclusively dedicated to the European cinema, in its 2006 edition will have an special view on Italy, country which will be the protagonist in some sections this year. Also, Italian cinematographers will be tributed in this edition. Born in 2004, this festival has been growing as an essential reference in our continent, because of the quantity of the prizes (240.000 euros in total) and because of the support that institutions like the European Film Academy offers to it.

Since the beginning of 2005, year in which France is the honour guest, the European Film Academy will announce, for the first time, during the Seville festival (from the 4th to the 12th of next November), the list of films and professionals nominated to the European Film Awards, whose 18th edition will be celebrated next December in Berlin.

The Sevillian festival, member of the European Coordinator of Festivals, will screen the most of the nominated films to these prizes in the 'Europe_Europe' section, as well as the 12 short films also nominated to the Prix UIP in different film festivals.

Seville is the unique European event with a contest section for the films supported by the Eurimages Fund. From this year, there are five sections in competition:
Official (Golden Giraldillo and 60.000 euros, Silver Giraldillo and 30.000 euros, Jury Special Award and 30.000 euros); Europe_Europe (Audience Choice and 30.000 euros); Eurimages (Eurimages Award and 30.000 euros); Europe Generation (Young Critics Award and 30.000 euros); and Eurodoc (Golden Giraldillo and 30.000 euros).

All these prizes, both in the feature films and in the documentaries categories, have an economic award which will be given to the Spanish distribution companies in charge of the winning films, as a proper way to favour their commercial premieres. In total, the competition will give 240.000 euros in prizes.

The Seville European Film Festival got last year 55.000 spectators. Italy was represented at the Official section by 'Le chiavi di casa', a Gianni Amelio's film which won the Jury Special Award and 30.000 euros for its distribution.