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France - Cannes 2016

L’oeil d’or jury rewards narratives on cinema history

Two documentaries about the history of cinema were rewarded with the Oeil d’Or or Golden Eye. One is from Brazil and one from India.

Documentary film maker  Eryk Rocha
Documentary film maker Eryk Rocha
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As Eryk Rocha clasped the Golden Eye trophy on Saturday in Cannes he’d won for his film Cinema Novo, his voice trembled with emotion.

“I’m deeply moved.This award is a tribute to the struggle to keep cinema alive in Latin America, in Brazil and a tribute to the great directors of the Cinema Novo, who are the past, the present and the future. They are immortal.”

The jury led by prize-winning documentary film maker Gianfranco Rosi also decided to give a special prize, an honorary mention, to Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya for their The Cinema Travelers.

Just after the ceremony, Abraham said, “To receive such an award at Cannes it’s an honour, it’s huge.” Madheshiya said, “For us even to film to première our film in Cannes , and to win an award means a lot to us.”

Via the stories of three larger-than-life characters, their beautifully shot film shows how mobile cinema is becoming extinct in Maharashtra in the west of India.

Rosi explained that the jury’s aim was not to establish a hierarchy. They wanted to show that both these films had “strong elements of narration, of transformation, of subtraction, and they both belong to the language of cinema.”

Cannes Film Festival director-delegate Thierry Frémaux attended the award ceremony.

In it’s second year now, Rosi says the Oeil d’Or is important, “I hope that slowly, slowly, after some years, documentary will have its own place in competition, in Un certain regard and in the main competition, and perhaps it won’t be necessary to have a separate prize to underline the importance of documentaries.”

Making a political stand, the Oeil d’Or Jury (Rosi with Anne Aghion, Thierry Garrel, Amir Labaki and Natacha Régnier) also made a statement of support for two film makers.

An Iranian of Kurdish origin, Keywan Karimi was sentenced in February 2016 to a year in prison, 223 lashes and a big fine. He was found guilty of insulting sacred values for a shot of a kiss he denies having taken, and of propaganda in making a film on graffiti in Teheran called Writing on the City.

Ukrainian Oleg Sentsov from Crimea was sentenced to 20 years in jail by Russian authorities in 2015. He’s accused of terrorism. He had protested against Russian troops occupying Crimea in 2014.
 

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