The 2010 NexT Trophy and the "Cristian Nemescu"  Award for Best Directing are going to Hungary

 

The Bucharest audience stormed into the Scala Cinema on Saturday evening to attend the opening gala of the fourth edition of the NexT International Film Festival and view the winning films of the most important short and medium length film festival in Romania.

 

The Hungarian film The History of Aviation / A Repulses Tostenete (directed by Balint Kenyeres, sound design Tamas Zanyi, Hungary, 2009) is the winner of the 2010 NexT Trophy, offered by the Romanian Cultural Institute. "I would like to thank our Romanian friends for programming the film and our jury for recognizing it" said Balint  Kenyeres in a message read on stage by Bretter Zoltan, the manager of the Hungarian Cultural Center in Bucharest and recipient of the award on the films behalf, awarded by American producer Jim Stark, jury member of NexT 2010.

 

The Cristian Nemescu award for Best Directing offered by the Romanian Cultural Institute went out to the other Hungarian film in the NexT competition: Laszlo Nemes was rewarded by the jury for his directing  on the short film A little patience / Turelem, “for the director's abillity to illustrate a shattering and highly complex and emotional story about complicity in times of war",  as Bettina Schwarz, short film representative of the European Film Academy and NexT 2010 jury member, mentioned on stage.

 

Dani Pena, the sound designer for the Spanish short film The Buoy / La Boya (dir. Mariano Salvador, 2009) is the winner of the Andrei Toncu Award for Best Soundtrack, offered by the Romanian Cultural Institute. The artistic director of the Bratislava International Film Festival, Matthieu Darras, argumented the jury's choice by stating "the ingenious fashion in which he uses the wide spectrum of marine sounds to express the extreme emotion of a man set out swimming on a memorable adventure".

 

Director Alexandru Mavrodineanu and leading actor in his own short film, Lele, went  on the Scala Cinema stage to receive the Best Romanian Film Award for Music in the Blood / Muzica in sange (sound design Alex Dragomir & Cristian Zsemlye, 2010), offered by Abis Studio and Cocor Media Channel. The audience gave a round of applause for Lele's thank you speech, and Romanian cinematographer and producer Liviu Marghidan motivated the jury's choice by mentioning that "this film proves that real life doesn't offer simple solutions, but that they are better yet when you have singing talent."

 

Romain Delange, the director of the French short film The Other World / L'autre monde, received The Special Mention of The Jury "for its extremely honest tone, which combines the story of a a quite emotional friendship with an original and personal perspective of a recent historical tragedy", according to the jury motivation, quoted by Elad Keidan, jury member of NexT 2010 and Winner of the NexT Trophy in 2009.

 

Three years after The Saddest Boy in The World was recognized by the public, a new short film by Canadian director Jamie Travis received the Audience Award: The Armoire (sound design Alfredo Santa Ana, Canada, 2009) is the most popular film out of the NexT fourth edition's competition, and his award was granted by Sony.

 

For the second year in a row, the Villa Kult Berlin Residency for Artists Center offered one of the NexT contenstants a Development Award for a first feature film project, consisting of a development grant. Renate Roginas, the center's founder, chose to support Nicolae Constantin Tanase's  project – Gaby_talent88.

 

The alternative poster competition for Cristian Nemescu's feauture film, California Dreamin', was handed to the most voted poster by the NexT audience: the poster designed by Marian Marinica stood out amongst other four finalist posters displayed in the Scala Cinema lobby throughout the entire festival, the award consiting of an Iriver E-book Story Reader, offered by Iriver and Skin Media.

 

Film critics Cristina Corciovescu, Magda Mihăilescu and Andrei Creţulescu selected the winner of the Film Criticism Award consisting of a spot in the Emile Cantillon Youth Jury of the Namur French-speaking Film Festival. The review from Marilena from P7 written in French by Irina Trocan convinced the three critics that its author is worthy of representing Romania on the most important French-speaking festival in Europe. 

 

Same as every year, part of the viewer's casting the votes for the Audience Award were rewarded for their involvment in the festival through a draw-out. The Lucky Viewer's Award consisting of books offered by Nemira Publishing House were given to Diana Georgescu, Irina Mihaela Antonescu, Andrei Ungureanu, Ionuţ Zaharia, Răzvan Macovei, Anda Puşcaş, Cristian Bălan, Horia Constantin, and the Cityplex movie tickets went to Mariana Ciorcilă, Oana Popescu, Paul Neagu, Dragoş Marcu, Andreea Dobre.

 

The closing gala of the  NexT International Film Festival's fourth edition began, same as every year, with the making-of video, an opportunity for those attenting to (re)connect to the mood of the previous festival days. The touching video, made by Luiza Pârvu, Tudor D Popescu, Anda Puşcaş, Adi Marineci, Adina Hariuc şi Alexandra Carastoian is available for viewing on the festival's official website www.nextfilmfestival.ro and will be shortly available at HD quality on the NexT International Film Festival's Youtube channel.

 

The fourth edition of the NexT festival is due to end on Sunday, April 18th 2010, when the Bucharest audience will get to see a rerun screening of the films presented in the Festival Friends sections (presented by HBO), Short Matters Tour! (presented by the European Film Academy) and Critics' Week.