Setubal, Portugal, June 11, 2007 – Last night, after the closing night ceremony started with a surrealistically quaint performance by an all-girls local band, Rajko Grlic's Border Post emerged as the clear winner, obtaining two of the major awards, as well as the International Critics Association prize.
The first thing you find out about Border Post is that, along with some funds from France and the U.K., its financing comes from Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Serbia – thus reuniting the (now separate) countries that once used to be part of Yugoslavia. The second thing, once the screening starts, is that it is a war comedy about hysteria. It takes place in the spring of 1987, in a small post at the border between Yugoslavia and Albania, where a group of soldiers, bored to the gills, can't wait till they shed their uniforms and go back to their civilian lives.
Until, that is, feeling a strange itch in his crotch, the lieutenant running the division is told by the only doctor among his troops that he has a sexually transmissible disease. Not wanting anyone to know (and definitely not his wife) - trying, therefore, to avoid going back home even on a furlough – the lieutenant declares a state of emergency, claiming the Albanian army is amassing behind the border to launch an attack on Yugoslavia. That, of course, triggers a war hysteria, and the situation gets even more out of control when the young doctor embarks on a love affair with the lieutenant's wife.
Altogether, it is a pleasant, nicely paced comedy which, at least in this reporter's view, could have been wackier and more biting.
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The various juries were presided by British actor Charles Dance (Main Competition), Portuguese producer Ana Sobrinho (First Works), American journalist Dennis West (American Independents), Portuguese teacher Albertina Estrela (Man and His Environment), Finnish programmer Tibor Biro (CICAE Jury), Georgian journalist Salome Kikaleishvill (FIPRESCI Jury) and Austrian journalist Florian Kroppel (SIGNIS Jury)
And here is the complete list of the winners:
BEST PICTURE
Border Post, by Rajko Grlic
JURY SPECIAL PRIZE
After the Wedding, by Susanne Bier
BEST DIRECTOR
Rajko Grlic for Border Post
BEST SCRIPT
Ognjen Svilivic for Armin
BEST ACTRESS
Helena Bergström and Maria Lundqvist for Heartbreak Hotel
BEST ACTOR
Rolf Lassgard for After the Wedding
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Raul Perez Ureta for Madrigal
AUDIENCE AWARD
The Optimists, by Goran Paskaljevic
MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT AWARD
Chernobyl: the Invisible Thief, by Christopher Boekel
Special Mentions
Clandestin, by Sylvain Rigollot
Lullaby, by Margreth Olin
AMERICAN INDEPENDENTS AWARD
Boy Culture, by Q. Allan Brocka
FIRST WORKS AWARD
Princess, by Birgit Grosskopf
Special mention:
The Art of Crying, by Peter Schonau Fog
FIPRESCI PRIZE
Border Post
SIGNIS PRIZE
Late Bloomers, by Bettina Oberli
CICAE PRIZE
The Art of Crying
SAPO VIDEOS AWARD
Malus, by Antonio Aleixo
Crosswalk, by Telmo Martins
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