- The film Kékszakállú, by Gaston Solnicki, wins the Silver Lady Harimaguada
- Adam Horovitz, Golden Exits’ leading actor, and Véronique Tshanda Beya, Félicité’s leading actress, win the Best Actor and Best Actress Awards, respectively
- David Pantaleón wins the Best Short Film Award for The Painted Calf
- The jury emphasized, in the words of Elena Gozalo, the “brave, against the current” selection of films in competition as well as “the knowledge the audience of the films screened at the festival has”
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Saturday, April 8, 2017. The jury of the 17th Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival (March 31, April 9) has granted unanimously the Cajamar Foundation Golden Lady Harimaguada to the French-Chinese production Bitter Money (France, China, 2016, 152 min.), by director Wang Bing, “a formally precise, immersive and devastating portrayal of a Chinese dream turned into a nightmare”, in the jury’s opinion. The second award of this 17th edition of the Festival, the Silver Lady Harimaguada, has been granted to Kékszakállú (Argentina, 2016, 72 min.), by Gastón Solnicki, which the jury has defined in the announcement of their decision as “a mysterious object born from Bluebeard’s Castle”.
Actress and director Joanna Preiss, the Marseille Festival’s programmer, Rebeca de Pas, and ETB’s producer, Elena Gozalo, members of the official feature film jury, have made public the awards during this morning’s press conference held at the Pérez Galdós Theater and in which they have coincided in stressing “the high level of the competing selection of films”. It is a “brave, against the current” selection, Gozalo emphasized, who has as well praised the audience of the festival: “we were surprised by the knowledge the audience of the films screened at the festival has (…) this festival deserves the audience it has”.
Together with the feature film jury, two members of the short film jury also participated in the press conference, the director and programmer of the Curtas Vila do Conde International Film Festival, Miguel Dias; and Jorge Tur, professor at the Master’s Degree in Theory and Practice of Creative Documentary Filmmaking at the UAB and a documentary maker. The also emphasized in the first words the quality of the short films selected by the festival. Luis Miranda, the festival’s director, has excused the absence in the presentation of the other members of the jury, Cristián Jiménez, Gabe Klinger and Marion Berger, this last one member of the short film jury.
The Best Actress Award has been granted to Congolese Véronique Tshanda Beya, leading actress of the feature film Félicité (Alain Gomis, France, Germany, Belgium, Lebanon, Senegal, 2017, 123 min.), a film she defined during her stay in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on the occasion of its presentation in the festival as a reflection of the life of “the women from Kinsasa, strong, brave, independent women that have to get by on their own everyday”.
Actor and musician Adam Horovitz has won the Best Actor Award for his work in Golden Exits (Alex Ross Perry, USA, 2017, 90 min.).
The jury also decided to grant a Special Mention to actress Charo Santos-Cocio for her role in Filipino Lav Diaz’s last feature film, The Woman Who Left (Philippines, 2016, 227 min.).
In the short film category of the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival’s 17th edition, the work by Canarian director David Pantaleón, The Painted Calf (Spain, 2017, 10 min.) has won the Best Short Film Award, a distinction granted by the jury formed by film programmer, writer and critic Marion Berger, as well as the aforementioned Miguel Dias and Jorge Tur; they also granted a Special Mention to Ears, Nose and Throat (Kevin Jerome Everson, USA, 2016, 10 min.).
Finally, the popular jury, made up of a heterogeneous group of thirty film lovers, has made public at 12:30 p.m. today the Audience Award, granted to the film Harmonium (Koji Fukada, Japan, France, 2016, 118 min.), whose last screening will be today Saturday, April 8, at 8 p.m. at the Monopol’s screen 2.
Canarias Cinema
Last Monday, April 3, the Canarias Cinema section’s jury made public their decision that granted to the film The Vanished Dream, by director Juan S. Betancor, the Richard Leacock Award for Best Feature Film of the 17th Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival. The Richard Leacock Award for Best Short Film was granted to Burning Mountains that Spew Flame, by Samuel M. Delgado and Helena Girón.
Besides the awards granted by the official jury, formed by Javier H. Estrada, critic in Caimán. Cuadernos de cine, teacher and film programmer; journalist and publicist Marina Lanza, specialized in Culture; and Joan Sala, editor in Filmin and programmer of the Atlántida Film Fest, the Digital 104 Distribution Award was granted by the Canarian audiovisual production company Digital 104 Film Distribution to the short film Sub Terrae (Nayra Sanz, Spain, 2017); and the Canary Islands Connection International Distribution Award was granted to the feature film Julie (Alba González de Molina, Spain, 2016).
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