This is “Simon of the Mountain”, by Federico Luis, who took the Grand Prize in one of the most important parallel sections of the French exhibition. Santiago Miter won the same award for the remake of “La Patota” in 2015.
Lorenzo Ferro, protagonist of “Simón de la Montaña”.
Argentine cinema is in congratulations this week. The thing is that, after the confirmation of the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, the success at the Cannes Festival is added. “Simon of the Mountain”, by Federico Luis, won the main prize at Critics’ Week, one of the most important parallel sections of the exhibition.
The film, starring Lorenzo Toto Ferro (The Angel), is a story of discovery and learning in which its main character, a 21-year-old boy, an only child with a solitary temperament, begins to explore a new world of revelations and sensations. by joining a group of young people with different disabilities.
“At home there are people who still think that we make movies that no one wants to see. I hope that this changes and that Argentines, and then the entire world, see Argentine cinema,” said the director when receiving the Critics’ Week Grand Prize (in its 63rd edition), from the president of the jury, French screenwriter and producer Sylvie Pialat.
Frame of “Simón de la Montaña”.
“At home there are people who still think that we make movies that no one wants to see. I hope that this changes and that Argentines, and then the entire world, see Argentine cinema,” said the director when receiving the Critics’ Week Grand Prize (in its 63rd edition), from the president of the jury, French screenwriter and producer Sylvie Pialat.
“I am thinking,” added Federico Luis, “not only about what this award means to us, but also what it means to people in Argentina who will have difficulties trying to make films over the course of the next four years.” Simón de la Montaña was made in a co-production between Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, and as it is the director’s debut film, it also aspires to the Camera D’Or award for which all debut directors compete each year and which will be announced with the rest of the winners next Saturday.
“This is a generous film. Respect each character and respect the viewer, allowing infinite interpretations, each of them equally valid. “We want to offer this award not only to its director, but also to the cast, to the brilliant leading actor and to the most beautiful kiss scene in the history of cinema,” said Pialat when announcing, through tears, the award.
The Critics’ Week jury that chose Simón de la Montaña as the best film presented this year within this prestigious section was made up, in addition to Pialat, by the French director Iris Kaltenbäck, the Polish-Belgian director of photography Virginie Surdej , the actor and director Eliane Umuhire (born in Rwanda and based in France) and the Canadian critic Ben Croll.
Critics’ Week, created in 1962 within the Cannes Festival, operates in the exhibition with the purpose of discovering new talents and generally exhibiting first works or second films by the directors participating in the competition. Every year 10 feature films and as many short films are exhibited in this section in competition.
Our compatriot Santiago Mitre appears on the historic list of winners of Critics’ Week, who in 2015 won with La Patota the same award that Argentine cinema has just won again. Among the filmmakers who became known with their first works throughout the history of this parallel section are Ken Loach, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Wong Kar Wai, Julia Docornau, Jeff Nichols and Jacques Audiard.
The jury prize went to Blue Sun Palace, by Chinese-American Constance Tsang, and the prize for best performance was won by Ricardo Teodoro for the Brazilian film Baby, by Marcelo Caetano.