Winners of the Fantasy Film Festival

The IV Riga International Fantasy Film Festival was closed on March 7, when a cheerful and fruity dedication to Nikolai Gogol – the great Russian literature classic – was offered to the audience and guests at cinema “K.Suns”.

The competition included 12 feature films, which were evaluated by an international jury: Magnus Paulsson, founder of the Fantasy Film Festival in Lund (Sweden), Kata Anna Varo, journalist and programmer of the International Film Festival Titanic in Hungary, and Dāvis Sīmanis, film director from Latvia.

Festival’s main award – The Golden Tooth – was given to the film Sauna (2008) by the Finnish director Antti-Jussi Annila. The jury agreed that this film “has a distinguished visual look that believably recreates the atmosphere of past times and gives a sense if inescapable doom. It is a physical journey, which becomes a spiritual one, revealing the good and evil in everyone of us. In the end we must all suffer the consequences of our worldly deeds – in the darkest place of our existence – the Sauna”.

The jury decided to award two Special Mentions, as well. Not Quite Hollywood (director Mark Hartley, Australia, 2008) received a Special Mention for being an “inimitable documentary – a true work of love that makes the viewer keep smiling long after having seen the film and gives a unique charge of inspiration”. The second Special Mention was given to Quid Pro Quo (director Carlos Brooks, USA, 2008) for a “perfectly filmed and well played film, offering great music and a truly interesting story that allures one to enter the nearest hospital and steal a wheelchair or buy a pair of magic shoes in an antique shop”.

The audience was also able to vote for its favourite film and the audience award and honorary diploma was given to Quid Pro Quo.

Let us meet again in two years, in 2011 at the V Riga International Fantasy Film Festival!

Photo: Uldis Austriņš

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