Vicky Krieps and the late Gaspard Ulliel in Emily Atef’s award-winning Plus que Jamais samsa film

Vicky Krieps and the late Gaspard Ulliel in Emily Atef’s award-winning Plus que Jamais samsa film

The Canadian festival of Francophone film, Cinemania, had an homage to Luxembourg as its focus this year.

The grand duchy’s film industry is celebrating more international recognition after samsa film’s Plus que Jamais (More than Ever), directed by Emily Atef picked up the main award, the Prix du Meilleur Film TV5 Québec-Canada, at the Cinemania festival in Montreal on Sunday.

The film, which stars acclaimed Luxembourg actress Vicky Krieps and French actor Gaspard Ulliel, in his penultimate film before his death, was first shown at the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes earlier this year. It was awarded the prize by a jury presided by Quebecois actress Pascale Bussières. 

The film was co-produced with France's Eaux Vives Productions, Bjoca, Jour2Fête, Ramona Productions and Arte, as well as Norway's Mer Film and Germany's Bayerischer Rundfunk. It received support from the Luxembourg Film Fund.

The festival had featured 20 films, 3 photographic exhibitions by Luxembourg-based photographer Fabrizio Maltese, public installations, virtual reality works, performances and events from Luxembourg as part of an homage to the grand duchy.

As well as Plus que Jamais in the feature film competition, Fabrizio Maltese’s L’invitation (Red Lion) and Karolina Markiewicz & Pascal Piron’s Les témoins vivants had been included in the documentary competition, which was won by Rafiki Fariala’s Nous, Étudiants! (We, Students!) about life at the University of Bangui, Central African Republic.

In addition, Alexis Juncosa, artistic director of Luxembourg City Film Festival was part of the jury that awarded the Films du Québec prize to Respire by Onur Karaman.


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