For the second year running, Unifrance has joined forces with France Culture to present the International Students' Award within the framework of the France Culture Cinema Prizes. And this year's winner is The New Kid by Rudi Rosenberg. The awards ceremony was held May 21 at 11 a.m. at the UniFrance Pavilion, during the Cannes Film Festival.
This year, 16 film schools took part in the award selection, compared to 7 establishments last year. The cream of young film students from some of the world's most prestigious film schools watched a selection of five films produced in 2016 that was put together by members of France Culture Radio and UniFrance.
The 5 films competing for the 2017 award:
- The Girl Without Hands by Sébastien Laudenbach – Animation
- Heaven Will Wait by Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar – Fiction
- The New Kid by Rudi Rosenberg – Fiction
- A Journey Through French Cinema by Bertrand Tavernier – Documentary
- Swagger by Olivier Babinet – Documentary
The 16 film schools participating in the competition:
- Griffith Film School, Griffith University (Brisbane, Australia)
- Deutsche Film-und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB) (Berlin, Germany)
- The Barbican Young Programmers of the Barbican Center (London, UK)
- London Film School (London, UK)
- ESAV - École Supérieure d'Audiovisuel Marrakech (Marrakech, Morocco)
- Ryerson University (Toronto, Canada)
- Dankook University (Yongin, South Korea)
- VGIK (Moscow, Russia)
- National University of Theatre and Film Bucharest "IL Caragiale" (UNATC) (Bucharest, Romania)
- School of Cinematic Arts, University South Carolina (Los Angeles, USA)
- ECAL - École Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne (Renens, Switzerland)
- Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográfico Mexico City (UNAM) (Mexico City, Mexico)
- Milano Civica Scuola di Cinema, (Milan, Italy)
- Tokyo University of the Arts (Tokyo, Japan)
- Universidad del Cine Buenos Aires (UCINE) (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
- Escuela Universitaria de Artes y Espectaculos (TAI) (Madrid, Spain)
A 2.0 event to win over young audiences around the world
The participating students both viewed and voted for the films online, between March and May 2017, using a secure access service provided by our new partner in this initiative, Festival Scope.
This operation is part of a bigger drive to increase French cinema's appeal to younger audiences outside France, and to attract audiences of tomorrow through the use of a 100% digital strategy.
The results of the competition were announced during the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, in the presence of our partners France Culture and Festival Scope. The film that won the hearts of foreign students was The New Kid. Congratulations to its director Rudi Rosenberg, to producers Mathias Rubin & Éric Juherian of Récifilms, who were present at the ceremony, and to sales agent Indie Sales.
Congratulations are also due to Adèle Beaulieu for her review of Swagger (read it here), and to Autumn Palen, who won the award for Best Video. This video was broadcast daily at the UniFrance Pavilion (and can be viewed here, password: film). Bravo Autumn for her inspiring vision of French cinema!
France Culture also presented two other awards at the ceremony:
The France Culture Cinéma Consécration Prize, created in 2011, honors a leading movie industry figure for the high quality of his or her work and the strength of their commitment to the industry. This year's winner was Costa Gavras, who received the award for his lifetime contribution to cinema. Previous winners of this award are Frederick Wiseman (2016), Abderrahmane Sissako (2015), Margarethe Von Trotta (2014), Pascale Ferran (2013), Cedric Kahn (2012), and Alexandre Astruc (2011).
The France Culture Students' Cinéma Prize, which is presented to an emerging filmmaker whose films have received support from France Culture during the previous year. This year's award went to The Girl Without Hands by Sébastien Laudenbach. In past years, film students have chosen as their winners Jean-Charles Hue for Mange tes morts (2015) and Alexandre Nanau for Toto et ses sœurs (2016).
