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Govinda Van Maele, member of the Cinéast international jury, speaks during the film festival’s Awards Ceremony, 19 October 2018. Photo: Matic Zorman 

More than 10,400 people attended the 11th edition of Cinéast, Luxembourg’s Central and Eastern European Film Festival, which was held 4-21 October at various venues across the grand duchy.

The festival culminated with an awards ceremony on Friday 19 October, with prizes presented by press critics, an international jury and audience members.

The Critics Prize was decided by three members of the press jury: Loic Millot, Charlotte Wensierski and Claude Neu, the film critic and RTL radio presenter. The winner was “Ága” (Bulgaria-Germany-France, 2018) directed by Milko Lazarov.

On presenting the award, Neu said that the choice had been a unanimous one, explaining that:

“The film kept our particular attention by its incredible elegance, its narrative capacity to tell us its story without being wordy. The story of a couple living in total autarky, the esthetic observation of its rituals, their way of facing the fact of getting old, the sensible observation of their regrets, but also the joy of their daily life as their memories of the past. Even if the setting is quite far from our cultures or ways of life, we deeply understood and were intensively touched by the destinies and the utmost humanity of Nanook and Sedna [two of the central characters].”

The international jury was comprised of both film directors and actresses from multiple European countries, including Govinda Van Maele, whose first feature film, “Gutland”, won the best film award at the 2018 Luxembourg Film Prize and was the grand duchy’s submission for the 2019 Academy Awards.

Among other awards, the international jury selected the recipient of the Grand Prix, which was presented to Zsófia Szilágyi for her debut feature film “One Day” (Hungary, 2018). Szilágyi was the former casting assistant to Ildikó Enyedi who won the Golden Bear and Oscar nominated film, “On Body and Soul”.

The Another Gaze had earlier in the year commented on “One Day” that:

”This is a truly brilliant and original perspective on motherhood. A refusal to shy away or prettify the grueling work that having children entails.”

Shot in handheld style with a soundscape that never stops assaulting the senses with its incessant screaming children, car alarms and everyday sounds, Szilágyi commented at Cannes that she hoped: “The film depicted such effort that goes into what is probably the least appreciated job on the planet; being a mother”.

In addition to the film screenings, the festival included a number of concerts, parties, exhibitions and debates, including the highly popular gastronomic event at Brasserie Wenzel.

The dates for next year’s Cinéast festival have not yet been announced.