Awards for Swiss co-productions in Carlsbad and Montecatini

14.07.2008

The fiction film “Tulpan” by the Kazak director Sergey Dvortsevoy, co-produced by Cobra Film in Zurich, was honoured with the “East of the West” Award at the 43rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (July 4-12, 2008). This prize, amounting to 10,000 dollars, is presented to one of 15 film productions from Middle and Eastern Europe screened in a special competition section. Two short films co-produced in Switzerland were also honoured with prizes at the 59th Mostra Internazionale del Cortometraggio in Montecatini (July 10-12, 2008): Reto Caffi’s “Auf der Strecke” received an Honourable Mention and an actor’s award for Roeland Wiesnekker, while the film “Un Riff para Lazaro” by Rémi Borgeaud won an award for Best Short Film in “The Look of Europe” section.
The film “Tulpan”, which had already won two awards at the Cannes International Film Festival earlier this year, tells of a man who is a sailor discharged from the marines and goes to his sister’s family on the Kazak steppe to try and make a living as a shepherd, wanting also to marry. The film, a co-production between Germany, Kazakhstan, Poland, Russia and Switzerland, is the first fiction film by director Sergey Dvortsevoy, who is well known for his documentary films.



Adriano Schrade, a Swiss sound engineer, was one of the three members of the international jury at the 59th Short Film Festival in Montecatini. The jury of “The Look of Europe” section, with this year’s theme “People, Europe and The City”, was comprised of twenty architecture students from Milan. They selected the graduate film “Un Riff para Lazaro” by Rémi Borgeaud, from the London Film School.



Geneva/Zurich, July 14, 2008
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