Astra Film

AFF 2007 - Awards

Grand Prize / Marele Premiu
ASTRA FILM SIBIU 2007 AWARD
offered by the National Centre of Cinematography
CABAL IN KABUL, Dan Alexe, Belgium
The two juries of the Festival appreciated unanimously the humanistic value of the movie. The documentaristical approach of the journalist that knew how to shoot the significant things in real time, to create in details two powerful portraits and to keep the balance between the serious problems of life in the dramatic context they live in, and the involuntary humor, makes it deserve the great prize of the 9 th edition of ASTRA FILM FEST.

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INTERNATIONAL SECTION  AWARD offered by the ROMANIAN PUBLIC TELEVISION
PRYRECHNY, THE TOWN THAT NO LONGER EXISTS, Tore Grottjord, Norway
This is a subtly shot portrait of loneliness among the few elderly remnants of a deserted mining town in Russia. The intimacy of the film is enriched by the historical context and the personal memories of the characters. The film is well paced and evokes the contemplative passage of time.

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THE INTERNATIONAL SECTION AWARD  offered by the Raţiu Charitable Family Foundation
ON A TIGHTROPE,Petr Lom, Canada/ Norway 
The jury unanimously decided to give the prize to the film that, in a very poetic and cinematically appealing style, successfully brings to the surface some of the world’s hot issues; confrontations between different traditions and regimes; oppressions of religious feelings and freedom of choice in life. With so much sophistication, depth and understanding for the intimate stories of those who have to navigate between two different paths in life, the personal stories become universal. Balancing between two worlds and two opposite calls in life, the filmmaker transposes the issues of the film into a global metaphor. With the precise research, which has been done, the filmmaker has succeeded in coming very close to his characters and in gaining their trust, so that the presence of the camera is almost invisible.

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Special Jury Commendation
MAKING RAIN, Frode Storaas & Liivo Niglas, Estonia/ Norway/ Mozambique
Beyond its deep careful description of a ritual, the film allows the spectator to discover another level lying beneath, the competition between genders. The film is re-enforced by its brilliant making and respectful approach.
EVERY GOOD MARRIAGE BEGINS WITH TEARS, Simon Chambers, U.K.
This film is a highly dramatic and extremely intimate story of love, duty, honour and rebellion by two young British Asian sisters as their marriages are arranged and held in Pakistan. Superbly shot and directed under extremely difficult conditions it deals with the topical issues of migration, generational conflict, Islamophobia, and arranged marriages in the modern world.

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EUROPE SECTION AWARD offered by The Foundation Deventer Roemenie and Filmhuis de Keizer, the Netherlands
OUR STREET, Marcin Latallo, France
For a lovingly made, long term project full of memorable characters and graphic situations. Marcin Latallo brilliantly weaves a history of a family together with the history of their city. Our Street focuses on the ups and downs of everyday life portraying a working class dynasty sucked under the historical tide.

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EUROPE SECTION AWARD offered by DUNA TV
TWO SISTERS, Jasna Krajinovic, Belgium
This is a powerful character study of an intense and complex relationship. The filmmaker uses the camera to explore and provoke her characters into revealing some of their deeper motivations. She leaves us with a memorable portrait of love in a contaminated landscape.

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Premiul Uniunii Europene oferit de Reprezentanta Comisiei Europene in Romania
EU Award offered by the European Commission Representation in Romania
MY HOME, Debora Scaperrotta, Italy, 64 min    
For the extraordinarily attentive way in which the documentarist listened to and observed her children. This is a difficult field in which to make a new film. Deborah Scarperrotta avoided the traps of sentimentality and sensationalism and gave us genuine moments of discovery.

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ROMANIA SECTION AWARD offered by the ROMANIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE
BAR DE ZI AND OTHER STORIES, Corina Radu, Romania   
The award goes to the film that shows a courageous artistic approach to contemplate on human destiny being determined by the society, the politics and the living conditions of the main characters. Very properly chosen, the dynamic photography and the great sense of rhythm, lifts up the filmmakers cinema-verite treatment of the narrative. It triggers a better understanding of “the others”, of the neighbours who live next door and are most of the time treated as invisibles. The refined manner of the editing creates a strong feeling of inner suspense with a great sense for detail, not being afraid of sometimes having very long static shots. This talented filmmaker establishes successfully very specific moods that keep the audiences’ attention to the very end.

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ROMANIA SECTION AWARD offered by BRITISH COUNCIL BUCHAREST
STAM – WE ARE STAYING, Anne Schiltz & Charlotte Gregoire, Luxembourg
A deeply sensitive film of two Transylvanian women, one a Gypsy and one a Saxon, shot by two anthropologists. While technically of a high professional standard, it has portrays a rare and magic intimacy between subjects and the filmmakers that can comes from a deep and prolonged mutual empathy. As a viewer we are lead deeper and deeper into the inner spiritual world of their anxieties and longings for personal identity, cultural belonging, economic survival, love, marriage and motherhood, as they struggle in their everyday lives and confront life’s conflicts, that many of us are too inhibited to share with strangers - a superbly executed triumph of feminine affection. This will always remain a valuable and sensitive document of young women’s lives in Romania at the beginning of the twentieth century.

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Special Jury Commendation                       
BEYOND THE FOREST, Gerald, Igor Hauzenberger, Austria
OBCINA, Bjorn Reinhardt, Germany
A visually magnificent evocation of shepherd life in the high Carpathian pastures by a young amateur filmmaker, that that portrays a year and a half in the life of an elderly shepherd who stubbornly stays on the mountain tops throughout the winter snows and looses his fingers to frostbite. It is a beautifully paced minimalist film, which refuses to use filmic artifice to detract from the natural drama of a struggle against the elements and inner personal trauma.

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STUDENT FILM AWARD offered by the NATIONAL CENTRE FOR CINEMATOGRAPHY
UNKOSHER TRUTH, Chana Zalis, Israel 
The director tackles a painful and personal subject with honesty, wisdom and a great sense of humour. She uses a seemingly simple situation to create a rich and layered film with universal resonance….an unkosher truth.

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AWARD FOR STUDENT FILM offered by SONY
AFTER THE WAR, Srdjan Keca, Serbia
For the delicate way in which the filmmaker creates the world of a no-man’s land between three borders. This is a poignant and poetic cinematic vision from a director of talent at the very start of his career.

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Special jury commentation
Mentiune
INDEPENDENCE, Rastko Petrovic, Serbia, 25 min

 

AFF 2007 - JURY

Cornel Mihalache
Studied stage directing and filmmaking. Made documentaries and worked as a stage director and a scenographer for theatre performances. He is the author of television films and programs. He was a member in the juries of international film festivals in Tampere, Chişinău,

Dakino, Simfest, Miercurea Ciuc. His films were selected in the finals of international film festivals (Cinema du reel Paris, Bilbao, Marseille, Krakow, Berlin, Namur) and won national and international awards (DaKino, Gfrand Prix Tampere – Finland, Nyon, ASTRA FILM SIBIU). He is a member of UCIN and UNITER associations.

Horea Murgu
EADiM fellow. Credits in 35 feature films and 250 short films; winner of awards for sound. After 1990, media consultant and member in media organizations in Romania and in Strasbourg. CDMM, Council of Europe (1996-2000). Founder of the BBC School for radio and tv journalism. Founder of the Multimedia School within the National School of Film in Bucharest. Producer of fiction shorts, winner of international awards in Locarno, Sarajevo, Namur. Member in international film festival juries in Dakino, Televest, Salzburg. At present he is the President of the Coaching Institute and Sound Design Professor at the National School of Film. Published a book on the grammar of audio-visual language and articles of cultural anthropology and the media.

Pawel Pawlikovski
Born in Warsaw; left Poland at 14, lived in Germany and Italy, studied literature and philosophy at London and Oxford Universities.Making films since mid 80’s. His films have won numerous awards over the years, among which BAFTA, EMMY International, The Gran Prix of the Documentary Film Festival Marseille, The Gran Prix of the Festival dei Popoli in Florence, The Royal Television Society Award, The UN Media Peace Prize, The Grierson Award, The Golden Gate Award of the San Francisco Film Festival, Best film of the international film festivals in Edinburgh, Thessaloniki, Gijon.
Retrospectives  of his work were shown in  San Francisco (1995),  La Rochelle and Bradford (2005), Buenos Aires and Gijon (2007).

Colette Piault
Doctor in sociology, University of Paris Sorbonne, anthropologist and filmmaker, former Director of Research at the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) in Paris. Fieldwork and filmmaking in West Africa, in France, and in Greece. Directed collective books and published articles related to field work and visual anthropology.
Has created and directed the SFAV (French Association for Visual Anthropology). Created and organized (between 1983-1992) International  Research Film  Seminars "Regards sur les Sociétés Européennes" (Looking at European Societies).
Has directed and achieved nine films , mainly on Greece and Cyprus which have been  widely presented in North and South America, Australia, South Africa, and in twenty different countries in Europe.

Cristi Puiu
One of the most acclaimed Romanian film directors and screenwriters of the new generation. He is the author of award-winning shorts and feature films. He has a declared interest in documentary, which is visible in his feature films. Winner of many awards, including Un Certain Regard at Cannes, Silver Hugo Special Jury Prize of the Chicago Film Festival , both for his feature film The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu, and The Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for his short film Cigarettes and Coffee.

Renate Roginas
A member of the European Film Academy, she is also active in the area of vocational advanced training as head of studies, lecturer and tutor at the Media Business School in Madrid, the Institut National Audiovisuel in Paris, the Film Academy Baden Wuerttemberg in Ludwigsburg, where she leads the study program "International Producing". She produced more than four hundred hours of feature and television films as well as documentary films. Since December 2006, she manages as a team leader the PHARE Programme of the European Union “Strengthening the audio-visual sector in Romania”.

Kaori Sakagami
Independent filmmaker and associate professor of  Media Studies at the Tsuda College Department of English in Tokyo. She has directed, produced and edited over thirty television documentaries. Manz of her films have won important awards at international film festivals. Her research interests focus on criminality, death penalty, and juvenile crime. These issues are also the main themes of her documentaries.

Rada Šešić
Worked as a film critic and director of several short and documentary films. She established herself as a specialist for South Asian cinema and Eastern European film. Šešić is a guest lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and works as a programme advisor for the International Rotterdam Film Festival and the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam. She is also a programmer of Kerala Film Festival (India) and head of the Regional Documentary competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival. She is a member in the selection committee of Jan Vrijman Fund, Hubert Bals Fund, and that of  the Dutch Fund STIFO. Recently she became a main programmer of the International Bucurest Film Festival, and a selector of the international docs. at the Sofia Film Festival, Bulgaria.

Michael Sinclair Stewart
One of the most distinguished anthropologist working in Eastern Europe as well as a film Producer in independent production companies and BBC. Currently coordinator of Marie Curie Funded International training program in anthropology for citizens of former socialist countries. (See http://www.ucl.ac.uk/mariecuriesocanth); Ph.D. in Social Anthropology; He has been, variously a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, Budapest (Collegium Budapest), a Rubin Research Fellow at School of Public Policy, UCL; a Leverhulme Research Fellow, Dept. of Anthropology, London School of Economics. Member of Astra Film Fest jury in 2004 and 2006.

Michael Yorke
Documentarist and profesor in visual anthropology. Lectures in Visual Anthropology at such institutes as the LSE, SOAS, Oxford University and the Manchester University Granada Centre. He is an active busy member the Royal Anthropological Institute Film and Festival committee and runs the Oxford Academy of Documentary Film for training social scientists in digital filming. Winner of many awards for his television documentaries, including the San Francisco Golden Gate Award, two Royal Television Society awards, a BAFTA nomination, the UN Environmental Award, the National Geographic Earthwatch Award, the BBC Asia Award among many others.