Black Sea triumphs at Villerupt
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The Villerupt Italian Film Festival is one of the most important showcases of films from Italy in France. For its 31st edition, which ended this weekend, a total of 64 films were screened in the former mining town close to the Luxembourg and German borders.
The prizes of the festival, the Amilcars, were handed out over the weekend, with Federico Bondi’s Black Sea winning both the Amilcar of the youth jury and the Amilcar of the main jury.
Producer Elda Ferri was head of the main jury, which also included actors Sandra Ceccarelli and Pierre Santini, French exhibitor Patrick Brouiller and Paolo Olmi, musical director of the Lorraine Opera.
Black Sea, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, is Bondi’s directorial debut and was co-written by veteran screenwriter Ugo Chiti. It tells the story of an eldery Italian woman (Ilaria Occhini) and her difficult relationship with the young Romanian girl (Dorotheea Petre) who looks after her.
The Audience Amilcar went to the comedy Love, Lies and Football from Luca Lucini. One of its stars, Giuseppe Batiston, was in Villerupt to present the film. The Amilcar of the Press went to another gentle comedy, Mid-August Lunch [trailer], from director Gianni Di Gregorio.
The Prize of the City of Villerupt went to composer Nicola Piovani, who won an Oscar for his score for Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful. He travelled to Villerupt to give a concert as part of this year’s retrospective, which looked at music in Italian cinema.
Boyd van Hoeij Cineuropa.org