'Paulina,' the star of the 54th Critic's Week in Cannes
On Thursday night, La Semaine de la Critique (or International Critics' Week), the parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival devoted to director debut features, awarded its winners for this year's edition.
The most sought-after award, the Nespresso Grand Prize, went to Santiago Mitre's "Paulina" ("La Patota"). The jury was moved by the story of this young woman, choosing to give up a brilliant career as a lawyer to go and teach in a rough environment, who faces an aggression that she then decides to live with. Since the director of the Grand Prix was unable to pick up the award himself, his producers and partners who were in Cannes came on stage to pick up the prize. Mitre sent the organizers a Skype message in which he thanked the jury and the Critic's Week organizers for so warmly welcoming his film.
The France 4 Visionary Award went to the Colombian film "La Tierra y la Sombra" by César Augusto Acevedo, which the jury found reminiscent of Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy. Worldwide acclaimed director of photography, Peter Suschitzky said that this film had a rare inner poetry and that he was looking forward to seeing Acevedo's next film.
Shorts were also part of the ceremony: the Sony CineAlta prize went to "Varicella" by the Italian director Fulvio Risuleo. The story depicts a mother who wonders if she should get her kid infected with chickenpox as the disease is safer to have when you get it as an infant.
The winners were selected from the seven competing features and ten short films by an international jury composed of Israeli actress Ronit Elkabetz; Peter Suschitzky, French director Katell Quillévéré, Canadian film fest programmer Andréa Picard and Dutch critic Boyd van Hoeij.
