On Friday evening the final curtain came down on the 6th annual British & Irish Film Season in Luxembourg.
Prior to the Closing Screening of James Erskine's Shooting for Socrates, the Irish Ambassador to Luxembourg, Peadar Carpenter, addressed the full #1 screening room at Ciné Utopia in Limpertsberg and acknowledged the quality of the programme and thanked those involved.
Festival Organiser, Geoff Thompson, presented a quick overview of the 12 days in which 18 feature films and 8 short films were screened across three venues and one writing masterclass too, which attracted a lot of interest. No less than 14 guests participated in the festival, including producers, directors and actors, of which 9 attended in person with another 5 via Skype, ensuring post-screening Q&A sessions every day of the film season - apart from the opening screening. Over 1,300 attendees attended the various festival events.
He thanked all those involved in the festival, including the sponsors (with particular mention to the Gold Sponsors: Aberdeen Asset Management, Kerry Group and NN Investment Partners), the various festival partners (Embassies, Edinburgh and Galway Film Festivals, Film Fund Luxembourg), those involved in flying over and putting up the guests (Luxair, Hotel Parc Alvisse, Hotel Grand Hotel Alfa), the transport of the films (DHL) and a special word of thanks for all the Volunteers (Christina, Emmanuel, Emily, Jason, Kit, Lucy, Megan, Nico, Sian, Sarah and Victoria).
AWARDS
The BIFS Critics' Award was announced by Pablo Chimienti who explained that the members of the ALPC (the Luxembourg Film Critics Association) had decided that the award go jointly to Andrew Haigh's 45 Years and Jamie Adams's Black Mountain Poets.
Geoff Thompson introduced the BIFS Audience Award and declared that three of the top four films voted by the attendees were documentaries, supporting the organisers' decision to increase the number of films in the genre this year. The overall winner of the Audience Award was Two by Two (Ooops Noah is Gone) by Sean McCormack and Toby Genkel, a Luxembourg co-production, also supporting the decision to include an animated film this year. Sean McCormack was in attendance to accept his prize.
The BIFS Audience Prize was won by Amy Panteli whose voting slip after the screening of Scottish Mussel had been drawn out of the almost 700 entered. Christian Carbonne of Luxair presented her with her prize, a voucher for return flights for 2 people to either LondonCity or Dublin; Amy explained that she has never been to Dublin, so that would be her choice of destination.
The Young Journalist Competition had encouraged English language students to submit written reviews of films screened during the film season; Caroline Muhlfenzl of Chapter1 bookstore presented the awards. Clémence Prime (Lycée Vauban) won the top prize for her review of Strangerland, with Gohar Sharoyan (Institut national des langues (INL)) for her review of A Doctor's Sword, and Brigita Olbrisa (European School) for her review of Black Mountain Poets, picking up the other two prizes.
The audience was treated to the World Premier of the short film Oleander produced by and starring Luxembourg resident Tara Donnell and directed by Giles Forman, who thanked the cast and crew for their tireless efforts in front of and behind the camera earlier this year at the Abbaye de Neumunster. That was before the Closing Screening, of Shooting for Socrates, which told the tale of the Northern Ireland football team's qulaificarion for, and participation in, the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, set against the background of the Troubles in Belfast.
The previous evening, Thursday, Sonita Gale flew in from London for the presentation of her documentary film about the life of Andrew Carnegie, described as the greatest rags to riches story ever told. From his humble upbringing in Scotland he moved to America where he amassed his fortune in the steel industry before engaging on missions of philanthropy, by building the Carnegie Hall and thousands of libraries world-wide, and peace-making, by trying to stop the outbreak of WWI. The producer informed the audience that she is planning a feature film as well as another production for television based on different aspect of his life.
Photos by Artur Kurkowiak
