25/01/2007

Fredi M. Murer’s Vitus [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Christian Davi
interview: Fredi M. Murer
film profile] (see Focus) was named Best Film of the Year at the 2007 Swiss Film Awards, which took place yesterday as part of the 42nd Solothurn Film Days.

The jury honoured "a film rich in sensitivity and love", which drew some 200,000 cinemagoers in German-speaking Switzerland, where it has been on release for over a year. Released at the end of December on German and Austrian screens, Vitus has been sold worldwide to over 30 countries and territories.

Fraulein [+see also:
trailer
film profile] - described by the jury as "a vibrant film whose highly unusual atmosphere leaves a lasting impression" - was awarded Best Screenplay, a title shared by director Andrea Staka and co-scriptwriters Barbara Albert and Marie Kreutzer.

Winner of the Best Documentary category was The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez, in which Heidi Specogna recounts the individual destiny of a soldier who dies in Iraq, a story in keeping with the current social and historical context that does not lose sight of the unique path of its hero.

Best Acting awards went to Jean-Luc Bideau, for his lead role in Jean-Stéphane Bron’s comedy My Brother is Getting Married [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean-Stéphane Bron
interview: Thierry Spicher
film profile], and Natacha Koutchoumov, for her supporting role in Denis Rabaglia’s television film Pas de panique (lit. “No Panic”). Koutchoumov also starred in Stealth [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Lionel Baier’s second feature, which was nominated in the feature film category.

The jury presented a Special Prize for the ensemble work of the cast of Stina Werenfels’s Going Private.

Presided over this year by playwright-director Charles Lewinsky, the jury members of the country’s most prestigious awards included journalist-scriptwriter Catherine Ann Berger, producer-director Pierre-Alain Meier, directors Sabine Gisiger and Frédéric Guillaume, actress Noémie Kocher, and France’s Serge Sobczynski, head of the Tous les cinémas du monde programme at the Cannes Film Festival.

(Translated from French)