Hit the Road Gets Top Prize – The Hollywood Reporter
Hit the Highway, Iranian writer-director Panah Panahi’s first characteristic, has received the highest prize on the BFI London Movie Pageant.
The film, which first bowed within the Administrators’ Fortnight sidebar in Cannes, received the official competitors’s finest movie award, which was chosen by a jury led by Mug director Małgorzata Szumowska that additionally included movie critic Jessica Kiang, Emmy-winning casting director Nina Gold (The Crown, Recreation of Thrones), BAFTA-nominated After Love director Aleem Khan and multi-award successful director Mark Cousins.
“The perfect movie award acknowledges inspiring and distinctive filmmaking that captures the essence of cinema,” mentioned Szumowska. “The essence of life! Always in cinema historical past, however maybe throughout a pandemic particularly, we’re on the lookout for methods to connect with life. Our alternative is for a movie that made us snort and cry and really feel alive.”
In The Hollywood Reporter‘s Cannes overview, Panahi — the son of acclaimed Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi — was described as a “stirring new voice,” with Hit the Highway “channeling the slow-burn, self-reflective realism current in a lot of the perfect work of the Iranian New Wave.”
The IWC Schaffhausen filmmaker bursary award — the annual £50,000 ($69,000) grant given in affiliation with the British Movie Institute, which this yr had Phoebe Waller-Bridge main the jury — went to Harry Wootliff, the director behind this yr’s Venice-bowing drama True Issues, starring Ruth Wilson and Tom Burke.
Elsewhere, the Sutherland Award for finest first characteristic went to highschool bullying drama Playground from Belgian author/director Laura Wandel, whereas the Grierson Award for finest documentary was received by Liz Garbus’ Changing into Cousteau, chronicling the life and profession of Jacques Cousteau. The Sutherland Award jury additionally gave a particular commendation to Laura Samani’s Small Physique, and the Grierson jury had a particular commendation for Babi Yar. Context, by Sergey Loznitsa.
Different London Movie Pageant honorees embody Duncan Speakman, who received the immersive artwork and XR award for Solely Enlargement, and Diana Cam Von Nguyen, who received the brief movie award for Love, Dad.
Mounia Akl’s drama Costa Brava, Lebanon — starring Nadine Labaki and Saleh Bakri — received the pageant’s viewers award, which final yr had gone to Thomas Vinterberg’s One other Spherical, which then ended up successful the Oscar for finest worldwide characteristic.
The 2021 London Movie Pageant, which opened on Oct. 6 with the world premiere of Western The Tougher They Fall, closes on Sunday with Joel Coen’s Shakespeare adaptation The Tragedy of Macbeth.