With ColCoa in Los Angeles and the Tribeca Film Festival in New York: from the East to West Coast, French films are hitting the mark in the USA.
Tribeca Film Festival
This year's Tribeca Film Festival in New York closed with an awards list in which French films did not go unnoticed, picking up two major awards:
Best Screenplay: Guillaume Nicloux for The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq
Jury Comments: "This screenwriter put a bodybuilder, a gypsy, a prostitute, and a world-renowned poet in handcuffs at a dinner table and made it feel right. When a film's language feels so natural as to make the viewer completely forget that a screenplay was written, the writer deserves special acknowledgement."
Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film: Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi in Il capitale umano by Paolo Virzi (an Italian-French co-production, see photo)
Jury Comments: "In her elegant portrayal of a profoundly conflicted wife and mother, this actress crafts a complex performance of a woman wrestling between love, family, and obligation. She layers both strength and fragility without self-consciousness, with a fearlessness to exercise both subtlety and restraint."
ColCoa French Film Festival
The ColCoa (City Of Lights, City Of Angels) French Film Festival, which dubs itself as "French cinema's second home," is based in Los Angeles and is dedicated to showcasing contemporary French films.
This year's festival was held from April 21 through 28. The awards ceremony boasted record audiences, with 20,000 spectators attending film screenings and Q&As held at the Directors' Guild of America on Sunset Boulevard.
Audience Award: Turning Tide by Christophe Offenstein,
Audience Special Prize: Chinese Puzzle by Cédric Klapisch
Audience Special Mention: Pour une femme by Diane Kurys
Critics' Award: Vandal by Hélier Cisterne
Critics' Special Prize: One of a Kind by François Dupeyron
Critics' Special Mention: The Rooftops by Merzak Allouache
Coming Soon Award: Chinese Puzzle by Cédric Klapisch
First Feature: Me, Myself and Mum by Guillaume Gallienne
Best Documentary: Flore by Jean-Albert Lièvre
Short Film Award: The Runaway by Jean-Bernard Marlin
Short Film Special Prize: Women's Letters by Augusto Zanovello
Short Film Special Mention: 5 mètres 80 by Nicolas Deveaux and 37°4 S by Adriano Valerio,
Audience Short Award: L'Audition by Pierre Niney
