- Baltasar Kormákur’s "Myrin" (Jar City) has won the Grand Prix Crystal Globe, the highest prize at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The Icelandic filmmaker (The Sea) and A Little Trip to Heaven) tells the tale of a desperate man is trying to locate the genetic origin of his little daughter’s brain illness. A solitary detective is investigating the murder of an old eccentric whose eventful past changes this seemingly ordinary case into a bizarre mystery. Both storylines gradually become intertwined in Baltasar Kormákur’s latest film – the biggest Icelandic box-office hit of all time. The 42nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 29th to July 7th) also handed out top prizes to Norwegian director Bard Breien won best director for his film, The Art of Negative Thinking. Acting prizes went to Elvira Minguez for her role in Pudor and Sergey Puskepalis for his role in Simple Things.
- 7/9/2007
- IONCINEMA.com
LONDON -- Alexei Popogrebsky's debut as a solo director, "Simple Things" -- a drama about a dying actor who begs a doctor to help him commit suicide in return for a valuable masterpiece -- swept the board at the closing awards ceremony of Russia's top national film festival, Kinotavr, late Monday.
Popogrebsky -- who first gained critical attention as co-director with Boris Khlebnikov of the award-winning "Roads to Koktebel" in 2003 -- won Kinotavr's Grand Prix and also picked up best director while the film's Sergei Puskepalis took best actor at the closing of the festival's 18th edition in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Leonid Bronevoy won the award for best male role for his part in the film.
The film -- one of the highlights in a competition lineup criticized for lax editing and confused storytelling -- also shared the Russian Critics Award with Alexei Balabanov's gruesome tale of a mid-1980s provincial Soviet psychopath, "Cargo 200".
Balabanov -- responsible for such classics as the gangster movie "Brother" and sepia-toned semi-pornographic tale "About Freaks and Men" -- caused a sensation at Sochi with his new film's uncompromisingly bleak and violent images of a young woman taken hostage and sexually abused for the benefit of a crazed police officer.
Popogrebsky -- who first gained critical attention as co-director with Boris Khlebnikov of the award-winning "Roads to Koktebel" in 2003 -- won Kinotavr's Grand Prix and also picked up best director while the film's Sergei Puskepalis took best actor at the closing of the festival's 18th edition in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Leonid Bronevoy won the award for best male role for his part in the film.
The film -- one of the highlights in a competition lineup criticized for lax editing and confused storytelling -- also shared the Russian Critics Award with Alexei Balabanov's gruesome tale of a mid-1980s provincial Soviet psychopath, "Cargo 200".
Balabanov -- responsible for such classics as the gangster movie "Brother" and sepia-toned semi-pornographic tale "About Freaks and Men" -- caused a sensation at Sochi with his new film's uncompromisingly bleak and violent images of a young woman taken hostage and sexually abused for the benefit of a crazed police officer.
- 6/13/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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