Naujienos
Winners of the 25th Vilnius IFF Announced
Bold and poetic, “The Metamorphosis of Birds” by Catarina Vasconcelos won the Best Film title in the European Debut Competition during a live broadcast of the awards ceremony.
The 25th Vilnius IFF went digital, with juries deciding on award winners online. Fyzal Boulifa was named Best Director for his perceptive portrayal of working-class life in “Lynn & Lucy”, with titular performances by Nichola Burley and Roxanne Scrimshaw earning them the Best Actress award.
The Best Actor title went to Jérémie Laheurte, Djanis Bouzyani and Anthony Bajon from the romantic drama “You Deserve a Lover” by Hafsia Herzi.
11 feature films were selected for the European Debut Competition. The winners were chosen by director Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, programmer of Rotterdam International Film Festival Evgeny Gusyatinskiy, film critic Boyd van Hoeij, artistic director of Göteborg Film Festival Jonas Holmberg, and head of sales at “New Europe Film Sales” Katarzyna Sinarska.
The absurd yet elegant commentary on European colonialism in “Nova Lituania”, directed by Karolis Kaupinis, was awarded the Cineuropa Prize.
Camille Degeye’s “Journey Through a Body” received the Best Short Film award, while “Inflorescence”, directed by Nicolaas Schmidt earned a Special Mention. The Short Competition included 30 contenders, with Lithuanian director Andrius Blaževičius, Greek director Konstantina Kotzamani and Berlin International Film Festival selecting committee member Simone Späni choosing the winners.
The Audience Award went to Jan Komasa’s Oscar-nominated “Corpus Christi”, which will continue to be available on-demand alongside other winning films. In order to spotlight the fraught situation faced by movie theatres, Xavier Dolan’s closing title “Matthias & Maxime” played in empty auditoriums after the awards ceremony ended
During the past two weeks, films in the online programme of Vilnius IFF were streamed 55,000 times – a sign of considerable support for the digital edition of the festival.
Watch the awards ceremony
The entire on-demand programme is available at https://kinopavasaris.lt/lt/filmai/ziurek-namuose
About the festival:
The 25th Vilnius International Film Festival Kino Pavasaris will take place March 19–April 2, 2020. Last year’s festival was visited by 126 542 filmgoers, making it the largest cinema event in Lithuania and one of the most notable film festivals in Eastern Europe.
