02-05-2017

FESTIVALS: I Go Back Home – Jimmy Scott Wins MofA Film Festival Top Award

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    SOFIA: Yoon-Ha Chang’s I Go Back Home – Jimmy Scott, produced by Germany’s Kemper Music Production, grabbed the Best Documentary Film Award of the Master of Art International Documentary Film Festival.

    The second edition of the showcase of documentary films devoted to the arts took place in Sofia on 20 - 30 April 2017 in four screening halls: the renovated Lumiere Lidl hall at the National Palace of Culture, the Odeon cinema, the Euro Cinema and the Cultural Centre G 8.

    A total of 60 films from over 30 countries, produced after 1 January 2015, competed in the programmes Architecture and Design, Music and Dance, Theatre and Cinema, Literature, Fine Art and Photography, Video Art and Advertising and Contemporary Art, Installation Art, and Protest Art. A new Art Video Games section was added this year and the video game chain Pulsar Games got involved in the festival. The Bulgarian National Television created the BNT award, consisting in acquiring the broadcast rights for the awarded film.

    “This year the number of the films doubled, along with the number of the screening halls and the admissions. We also had nine Bulgarian films, among them two prestigious titles coproduced by Bulgarian National Television: Lubomir Pechev’s A Bridge to Christo dedicated to the Bulgarian artist Hristo Yavashev, more famous under the name of Christo, and Iskra Angelova’s and Milena Getova’s Who’s afraid of Julia Kristeva with the participation of the worldwide known Bulgarian philosopher, psychoanalyst and linguist based in Paris,” festival founder and artistic director Titzin told FNE.

    The festival was organised by Spotlight and the Master of Art Foundation. It was supported by the Sofia Municipality, the Bulgarian National Film Center, the National Palace of Culture and the America for Bulgaria Foundation.

    FULL LIST OF WINNERS:

    Master of Art Best Documentary Film

    I Go Back Home – Jimmy Scott (Germany, South Korea, USA)
    Directed by Yoon-Ha Chang
    Produced by Kemper Music Production

    Best Documentary Films by Categories

    Architecture and Design

    Sebastian Errazuriz: Monologues In the Artist’s Studio (USA)
    Directed by Palu Abadia
    Produced by Palu Abadia

    Music and Dance

    Presenting Princess Shaw (Israel)
    Directed by Ido Haar
    Produced by YesDocu, coproduced by France 4 Television, CBC Canada, SVT, VPRO

    Theatre and Cinema

    S Is for Stanley (Italy)
    Directed by Alex Infascelli
    Produced by Kinethica

    Literature

    Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt (Israel, Canada)
    Directed by Ada Ushpiz
    Produced by Intuitive Picture, AUFilms

    Fine Art and Photography

    David Lynch the Art Life (USA)
    Directed by Jon Nguyen, Rick Barns
    Produced by A Janus Films, Soda Pictures

    Video Art and Advertising

    A Love Story (UK)
    Directed by Anushka Nanayakkara
    Produced by Khaled Gad

    Contemporary Art, Installation Art, Protest Art

    Paris Tower 13 (France)
    Directed by Thomas Lallier
    Produced by  Matthieu Buchsenschutz, Lester Bernard  

    Best Bulgarian Film

    The Way to Thebes
    Directed by Nikolay Vasilev
    Produced by Bulgarian National Television

    Best Short Film

    Ellis (USA)
    Directed by JR
    Produced by JR, Jane Rosenthal

    Bulgarian National Television Award

    The Music of Strangers: Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble (USA)
    Directed by Morgan Neville
    Produced by Silkroad, Participant Media, The Orchard, HBO

    Most Beautiful Documentary Award

    I, Claude Monet (UK)
    Directed by Phil Grabsky
    Produced by Seventh Art Productions

    Audience Award

    88MHZ (Bulgaria)
    Directed by Yana Titova
    Produced by Alexander Alexiev

    Special Jury Mention

    Ayham Ahmad - The Pianist of Yarmouk (Germany)
    Directed by Gunter Atteln, Carmen Belaschk
    Produced by Accentus Music, ZDF