Estoril Film Festival '08

This is just one more portuguese film festival, among many others. However, do not think this is JUST one more... Estoril Film Festival 2008 is under the direction of Paulo Branco, who tries to celebrate cinema as an artistic creation, exploring its three components - art, entertainment and industry. Focusing on the work of the most important and remarkable directors of our time, this film festival bring us an exchanging knowledge, offering different ways of seeing cinema with masterclasses, public meetings with international artists, debates, concerts and exhibitions. The Festival will also host a meeting between the best European film schools, the annual meeting of Europa Distribution and a debate with some of the most well known international critics. I am sorry for my late post, since the festival is already finished. It took place in the Estoril Casino from 14th to 22nd of Nov.

Here is the list of the hounors for this year:

BEST FILM ESTORIL FILM FESTIVAL 2008

Wild Field, by Mikhail Kalatozishvili
108’|RU|2008

A hard and magical look over the russian steppe. A film that caught the jury’s eye for its intimate and expansive beauty. The story about a provincial doctor who discovers a strange force, an invisible threat.
Between the tradition of the classical Russian cinema and an outstanding modernity, Wild Field is the great discover of the Festival.

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE – CASCAIS TOWN COUNCIL
Ex-aequo
Involuntary, by Ruben Ostlund
98’|SW|2008
The new enfant terrible of the new Swedish cinema stages a play of human pictures in the middle of the countryside Summer. Situations on the limit shot in a context of an extreme realistic experience. A film about friends, traumas of the past and the little lessons we learn with our mistakes. Ruben Ostlund reveals his work in Portugal.
Hooked, de Adrian Sitaru
84’|RO|2008
One more time the new Romanian cinema triumphs in an international festival. A case of charm at the first glance, Hooked was one of the sensations in the last Venice Festival and establishes the talent of Sitaru, cineaste who uses video as a subjective element. Hooked is also a film of actors shot with minimalism.

CINE-EUROPA PRIZE

Shultes, de Bakur Bakuradze
100’|RU|2008
The honors list of the festival consecrates again the Russian cinema. Shultes is a noir variation of an unlikely friends tale: a deluded pickpocket and a child from the streets of Moscow. A raw portrait of a very particular Russian sadness, Shultes puts Bakur Bakuradze on the map, director who knows how to create atmospheres with splashes of classic American cinema and the most intriguing Russia dryness.

More information on its official website.