The 16th Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFe) ended on Thursday in Ljubljana with an award ceremony. The Kingfisher Award, the top prize of the two-week festival, went to a Danish-Icelandic parody "Dark Horse", directed by Dagur Kari.
The international jury of the EUR 5,000 Kingfisher Award included Fernanda Silva from Portugal, the manager of the international film festival Festroia, actor Slavko Stimac from Serbia-Montenegro, and Slovenian director Metod Pevec.
The jury selected the story about a graffiti artist who makes a living making commissioned love statements on the walls of buildings in Copenhagen among 16 films featured in the festival's competition section, Perspectives.
Moreover, the jury also gave special mention to the Slovenian-Croatian co-production "Gravehopping" by Slovenian director Jan Cvtikovic, a drama which raised the curtain on the festival.
This year's audience's favourite, picking up the festival's Golden Reel, was the light comedy "Kebab Connection" about a young Turkish immigrant in Hamburg, who wants to become the director of the first German kung fu film.
The film, which was selected among as many as 36 movies in the Horizons section which presents a balanced view of world cinematography, was directed by German director Anno Saul, who was among 60 prominent guests to visit the festival in Ljubljana.
A drama "What Iva Recorded On 21 October 2003", a feature film by Croatia's Tomislav Radic from the section South by Southeast, won the critics' award, bestowed by the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI).
The Amnesty International Slovenija Award, which was conferred for the first time this year, went to "The Shutka Book of Records", a documentary on the "capital of Roma", the town of Shutka in Macedonia, which is inhabited by bizarre, fanatically obsessed and utterly insane characters.
The film was selected among 14 feature film and documentaries by an international jury: Allan Berg Nielsen from Denmark, Hans van Garven from Netherlands and Maja Weiss from Slovenia.
The award ceremony took place in the culture and arts centre Cankarjev dom, which was followed by a world premiere of the feature film by director Matjaz Klopcic, "Ljubljana the Beloved", this year's largest film production in Slovenia.
As many as 108 films were showcased at the LIFFe festival between 10 and 24 November, with the turnout at an estimated 50,000.
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