Romanian director Emanuel Pârvu’s “Three Kilometers to the End of the World,” a Palme d’Or contender at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, took home the top prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival Friday night.
The third feature from the actor-turned-director was awarded by the jury headed by U.S. writer-director Paul Schrader (“First Reformed”) that included Swedish actor and producer Noomi Rapace (“Lamb”), Finnish director-writer Juho Kuosmanen (“Compartment No. 6”), Sarajevo-born, Paris-based director, writer and editor Una Gunjak (“Excursion”) and Slovenian actor Sebastian Cavazza (“Men Don’t Cry”).
“Three Kilometers,” which follows a 17-year-old who’s the victim of a homophobic attack in a small town in Romania’s Danube Delta, examines the assault’s fallout on his rural community from multiple perspectives. Variety’s Guy Lodge described it as a “claustrophobic study of personal and institutional prejudice closing in on a community misfit,” praising the “cinematic heritage” of its formal accomplishments but adding that “there’s little about the film that feels idiosyncratic, either stylistically or in its surface-level human portraiture.”
The award for best director went to Yorgos Zois for his fantasy-drama “Arcadia,” which had its world premiere in the Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival. The film tells the story of a brilliant neurologist, Katerina, played by Greek standout Angeliki Papoulia (“Dogtooth,” “The Lobster”), and her husband, Yannis (Vangelis Mourikis), a once-respected doctor, who are called to identify the victim of a tragic car accident at an off-season seaside resort. Once there, Katerina is forced to confront her worst suspicions while making mysterious, nightly excursions to the titular seaside tavern.
The award for best actress went to Anab Ahmed Ibrahim for her performance in “The Village Next to Paradise,” from director Mo Harawe, which was the first feature from Somalia ever to screen on the Croisette when it bowed in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section this year. Ibrahim plays a woman trying to live on her own terms following a marriage that ended because of her infertility in what Variety’s Murtada Elfadl described as Harawe’s “poised” and “confident” debut.
Best actor honors in Sarajevo went to Doru Bem for his lead role in Andrei Cohn’s “Holy Week,” a historical drama about the endless cycle of bloodshed in a 19th-century Romanian village. Bem plays a Jewish man named Leiba who runs the village inn, a meeting point for Christians and Jews alike, although the conviviality masks racism and antisemitism.
More to come…
Source Agencies
