The Edinburgh International Film Festival had it’s last day yesterday, part of which included the annual festival award ceremony. Screen Rant recently reviewed the new Duncan Jones/Sam Rockwell flick Moon, which scooped one of the top awards at EIFF, known as the Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film. Other winners included the Cannes favorite Fish Tank, and the phone-sex drama Easier With Practice.
For those of you who may not know (and unless you’re really into smaller films and festivals, or live in the UK, you probably won’t), the Edinburgh International Film Festival is the longest continually running film festival in the world, first starting in 1947. It celebrates all type of films from low-budget British horror flicks to the latest from Pixar. I have been lucky enough to attend the festival two years running now, and I have enjoyed the variety and quality of films immensely so far.
As I mentioned, Moon took the Michael Powell British film award, but here is the full list of EIFF 2009 award-winners (click on titles for film info):
(Courtesy of EIFF and Empire)
Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film
Moon – Directed by Duncan Jones
PPG Award for Best Performance in a British Feature Film
Katie Jarvis - Fish Tank
Best New International Feature Award
Easier With Practice
Standard Life Audience Award
The Secret Of Kells
Best Documentary Award
Boris Ryzhy
Skillset New Directors Award
Cary Joji Fukunaga - Sin Nombre
The Rotten Tomatoes Critical Consensus Award
Humpday
UK Film Council Award for Best British Short Film
After Tomorrow
Best International Short Film Award
Princess Margaret Blvd.
Scottish Short Documentary Award
Peter In Radioland
McLaren Award for New British Animation
Photograph Of Jesus
Either by some odd coincidence or cruel twist of fate, I somehow only caught one of those above winning movies, and that was Moon. I really liked the film, but wasn’t quite enamored with it as most were. The two highlights of the festival for me were Ponytpool – a Canadian zombie movie with a twist – and Black Dynamite – a spoof of the “blaxploitation” movies of the ’70s.
Movies I wasn’t so keen on at the EIFF 2009 were the controversial Antichrist, which was a love it or hate movie that shocked and appalled a lot of people at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year (I now share in their distaste for it, btw). One of my most anticipated movies of the festival, Romeo & Juliet vs. The Living Dead was a huge disappointment, and ended up being the worst film I saw there.
A sad truth is that many of the smaller films that were shown at the EIFF (as is the case with most festivals) won’t get a wide release. It’s a shame, since some of the films deserve just as much recognition as movies with multi-million dollar price tags.
Did any of you happen to make it to the Edinburgh International Film Festival this year? If not, do any of those winning movies look appealing to you?
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