 |
| Juliette Gariépy in the Quebec thriller Red Rooms in Competition at Karlovy Vary Photo: Courtesy of KVIFF |
Pascal Plante's Red Rooms, a brooding drama about a woman's obsession with the trial of a serial killer, has won the esteemed Cheval Noir prize at this year's Fantasia International Film Festival. Plante also received the award for Best Screenplay and his composer, Dominique Plante, won best score, while star Juliette Gariépy was named Best Actress.
“The ultimate effect a film can achieve is to implant a significant and lasting emotional memory. The jury was unanimously convinced that Les Chambres Rouges masterfully accomplished that goal," said the jury. "With incredible skill and artistry, without resorting to gore or violence, this film delivers not only an extremely disturbing and frightening experience but introduces you to characters and situations you may never forget."
This year's Satoshi Kon Award For Excellence In Animation went to Takehiko Inoue's basketball film The First Slam Dunk, marking another triumph in what has been an incredibly successful festival run. "Our choice boiled down to this film for its clever and well-executed interplay between highly-relatable human drama, the exhilarating, breakneck editing of the numerous action sequences that are peppered throughout the story, and for its creative and technical use of animation," said the jury, describing it as "a gem of a film through and through that enriches an already existing franchise, while at the same time remaining open to viewers who never have never seen or read any of the previous existing material."
The festival will continue to run for another ten days.
Those awards in full:
Cheval Noir Competition – Feature Films
- Best Film - Red Rooms
- Best Director - Sam H Freeman & Ng Choon Ping – Femme
- Best Screenplay - Pascal Plante - Red Rooms
- Best Score (The Sandro Forte Award) - Dominique Plante - Red Rooms
- Best Cinematographer - Zelda Adams & John Adams - Where The Devil Roams
- Outstanding Performance - Nathan Stewart-Jarrett - Femme
- Outstanding Performance - Juliette Gariépy - Red Rooms
- Special Mention - Vincent Must Die
New Flesh Competition For Best First Feature – Debut Films
- Best First Feature - Stay Online
- Special Mention - Tiger Stripes
- Special Jury Mention - The Abandoned
International Short Film Competition
- Best Short Film - Bold Eagle
- Best Director - Jacob Chase – Mr. Blur
- Best Screenplay - David Winstone - The Norbelto Method
- Outstanding Performance - Silvana Mihai - The Taster
- Outstanding Performance - Lim Hyojin - Shoulder
- Special Mention - Sweet Juices
- Best Score - Matthias Dewilde - Poppy’s Saturn
- Best Cinematography - Julien Ramirez Hernan - Transylvanie
Axis: Satoshi Kon Award For Excellence In Animation
- Best Feature Film - The First Slam Dunk
- Special Jury Mention - Sand Land
- Best Short Film - Gold - A Kind Of Testament
- Best Short Film - Silver - Architect A
- Best Short Film - Bronze - Record. Play. Stop.
- Aqcc-Camera Lucida - Irlande Cahier Bleu
- Special Jury Mention - Home Invasion
