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LONDON — Clio Barnard‘s The Selfish Giant, a contemporary update of the Oscar Wilde fairy story, has won the Europa Cinemas Label for the best European film unspooling during the Cannes Film Festival.
The film premiered in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight sidebar and marks the 10th time the Label has been awarded in Cannes.
The prize means the Europa Cinemas Network, a exhibitors association which represents over 3,000 screens in Europe and elsewhere, will provide additional backing to exhibitors to exhibit the film.
This year’s Europa Cinemas jury in Cannes consisted of Alice Black of Dundee Contemporary Arts in the U.K., Koyo Yamashita of Japanese exhibitor Image Forum-Tokyo, Rafael Maestro from Ciné Passion en Périgord – St. Astier in France and Petar Mitric – of EuroCinema Subotica in Serbia.
The Europa Cinemas Network, now in its 20th year, also honors European art house films with similar prizes at the Berlin, Venice and Karlovy Vary film festivals and will also pick a winner from this year’s Locarno Film Festival for the first time.
In a statement, the jury said the movie’s prize was a unanimous decision.
“A supremely well judged film – delicate, powerfully emotional, and brilliantly acted with remarkable editing and photography. It is a tough subject but there is hope in this moving story of the friendship between two boys. A very successful contemporary update of the Oscar Wilde fairy story, we feel that that this film will be especially useful for engaging younger audiences – a worthy winner of the Label, therefore,” the jury said.
Barnard is both director and screenwriter on the film produced by Tracy O’Riordan with Katherine Butler and Lizzie Francke as executive producers.
The film garnered backing by the British Film Institute and Film4.
Protagonist Pictures was touting the movie internationally during Cannes.
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