John Hurt led a panel of industry professionals who selected the Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days as the overall winner for BBC Four's World Cinema Award 2009. The glittering ceremony, which took place on 27th January at the BFI Film Theatre on London's South Bank, also saw the maverick German director Werner Herzog awarded the inaugural lifetime achievement prize. The ceremony was presided over by Jonathan Ross, fresh from his recent enforced exile.
The Panel for BBC Four's World Cinema Awards
The panel consisted of acting behemoth and national treasure John Hurt, Sandra Hebron who is both film critic and director of the BFI, Adrian Lester who is best known for TV show Hustle (but more widely celebrated by critics for his dramatic stage performances), and Asif Kapadia the award winning director of The Warrior.
The Nominated Films
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, directed by Julian Schnabel
- The Orphanage, directed by Jaun Antonio Bayona
- 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, directed by Cristian Mungiu
- Gomorrah, directed by Matteo Garrone
- Persepolis, directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi
The Importance of Foreign Film Awards
As presenter Jonathan Ross commented, many superb foreign films did not even find their way onto the shortlist. Britain's most popular foreign language film of the previous year, according to audience attendance figures, was The Kite Runner. A moving tale of friendship, guilt and redemption set in Afghanistan and directed by Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace). Best foreign film Oscar hopefuls Waltz With Bashir, The Class and The Baader Meinhof Complex were also overlooked by BBC Four, but - as John Hurt pointed out – all the films that were nominated could be sure of an increased interest and audience awareness.
In fact, the ceremony itself was full of razzmatazz, in this the sixth year of its existence. It just goes to show how quickly the awards have assumed a cultural significance, and how audience interest in world cinema is thriving. The only slight irritation was the number of times Jonathan Ross or John Hurt urged people to go out and actually watch these films. A noble gesture, yes, but didn't they realise they were preaching to the converted?
The Winner
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a Romanian film, set during the 1980s when communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was in power. As the title suggests, the film concerns the plight of a young girl seeking an illegal abortion, but its power lies not in moral dilemmas but in the ability to realistically present the stark choices of everyday survival. The film doesn't even try to win sympathy for pregnant Gabita (Laura Vasiliu). Instead, it focuses on her best friend Otilia (Anamaria Marinca), who in many ways is just a helpless witness to proceedings, very much like the audience.
The story exposes the real world that Romania's politics helped to cultivate. In the current climate of enthusiasm for realistic film and TV, like HBO's The Wire, 4 Months.... fits perfectly. It reveals the unenviable lengths some people have to go just to get through an ordinary day. Like the teenage pushers on Baltimore's corners, Gabita and Otilia do not lament their lot, they just get on with the lives they were born to.
Werner Herzog
The recipient of BBC Four's first ever special world cinema award for outstanding contribution to foreign films was Werner Herzog. The great German director is famous for feature films such as Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre, Wrath of God, and Nosferatu the Vampyre as well as outstanding documentaries such as Grizzly Man and current Oscar contender Encounters at the End of the World. His acceptance speech was a wonderfully moving monologue, encapsulating the enduring love of films, that exists for so many, in simple heartfelt prose. Here's an extract:
“ ....there's an innate, intelligence in audiences...there's a quest of audiences to see a little bit more than just plain entertainment. Sometimes cinema is capable to lead us to something which is very elusive, very hard to articulate, very hard to achieve. Certain moments where you walk out of a theatre and you feel illuminated. This has happened to me as a viewer....and I've aways tried to achieve something like this....”
God bless Werner Herzog. What a wonderful man.
Further Reading: Check out all the previous BBC4 World Cinema Award winners here.
 |
 |
