The International Jury of the
52nd DONOSTIA-SAN SEBASTIAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
consisting of the members
at a meeting on 25 September 2004, has decided by majority
to grant the following awards:
Donostia-San Sebastian, 25 September 2004
| 
|
MARIO
VARGAS LLOSA
Presidente |
| He was born in
Arequipa (Peru) in 1936. In 1953 he entered San Marcos University
in Lima, where he studied Arts and Law. In 1959 he moved
to Europe, and lived for several years in Madrid and Paris.
In 1964 he went back to Peru and a year later married Patricia
Llosa, with whom he has had three children, Álvaro,
Gonzalo and Morgana. In the seventies he went back to Europe
and lived in London and Barcelona. A politically-committed
man with progressive ideas, he sympathised with the Cuban
revolution until 1971 when the Padilla Case led him to distance
himself from its ideology. Concerned about the political
situation in his own country, he decided to take an active
part by running for president in 1990. He is one of the
most famous writers to have emerged from what was called
the Latin American Boom. He first established his reputation
in 1959 with the book of short stories “Los jefes”,
but achieved international fame with his novel “The
City and the Dogs” (1962), which dealt with the reality
of military colleges. “The Green House” (1966)
and especially “Conversation in the Cathedral”
(1971) established him as one of the key figures in literature
in Spanish. In the seventies he wrote “Captain Pantoja
and the Special Services” (1973) and “Aunt Julia
and the Scriptwriter” (1978). In 1981 he once again
produced a political novel with “The War of the End
of the World”. For several years he devoted himself
to writing essays and journalism and to the theatre. In
1997 he returned to narrative literature with “The
Notebooks of Don Rigoberto”, an erotic entertaining
novel, while “The Feast of the Goat” (2000)
portrayed a Latin American dictator that is directly modelled
on the figure of Trujillo. His latest book, “The Way
to Paradise”, about the life of the painter, Gauguin,
appeared in 2003. An Honorary Doctor at various universities,
a controversial columnist and essayist, he has received
numerous awards throughout his career. Francisco Lombardi
has turned two of his most emblematic novels into films:
“The City and the Dogs” in 1985 (Award for Best
Director at the San Sebastián Festival) and “Captain
Pantoja and the Special Services” in 2000. |
 Up
| 
|
YAMINA
BENGUIGUI |
| Born in Lille
(France) in 1957, she is a filmmaker and writer, who has
received the Order of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour
for the Arts and the French National Order of Merit. She
is one of the first French directors and producers of Algerian
origin, and works at the company, Bandits, which she is
a shareholder in. She has devoted her work as a politically
committed filmmaker to exploring the human side of immigration
from the Maghreb in France and Muslim identity through documentary
sagas such as Mémoires d'immigrés, l'héritage
maghrébin (7 d’Or 1997 for best documentary)
or Femmes d’Islam, both of which have been awarded
numerous international prizes and have been studied at film
and sociology departments at several universities (Berkeley,
New York, Berlin, etc...). In 2003 she received the Peace
Prize in Florence for her work as a whole. Her first full-length
film, which she directed in 2001, Inch'allah dimanche, was
shown in the “Among Friends and Neighbours”
retrospective that the San Sebastián Festival put
on last year. The story of an Algerian woman who joins her
family in Picardy, that was awarded more than 27 international
prizes, allowed her to return to her favourite theme, the
roots of memory, dealt with this time from a fictional angle.
Her work in documentaries has also dealt with subjects like
eroticism in Muslim culture, Le jardin parfumé, or
integration into society through institutions like the army
with Aïcha, Mohamed, Chaïb... engagés pour
la France. She is currently president of FIPA and is preparing
her second feature film Le Paradis? C’est complet!,
as well as a television series, Aïcha, in six episodes
lasting 52 minutes for “France 2” . She has
just finished a documentary for “France 5” :
Le plafond de verre, about the difficulties faced by young
French graduates from immigrant backgrounds to get on in
the world of business, where they are victims of racial
prejudice. |
Up
| 
|
TOM DiCILLO |
| Born in North
Carolina (USA) in 1953, He graduated in 1979 in Directing
at the New York University’s Graduate Film School.
While he was studying, he made some short films, one of
which, Interview, won the Paulette Godard Scholarship Award.
Having just graduated, he studied performance and worked
as director of photography on eight films, including Stranger
Than Paradise, by Jim Jarmusch. The monologue Johnny Suede,
a theatrical text, that he wrote and performed himself in
1987 at the Home for Contemporary Theater, gave rise to
his first full-length film of the same name. Shot in 1991
with Brad Pitt and Catherine Keener in the leading roles,
the film won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Festival
in 1992. In 1995 his second film, Living in Oblivion won
the award for Best Script at the Sundance Film Festival
and the award for Best Film at festivals in Deauville, Stockholm
and Valladolid, as well as having the honour of opening
the New Directors/New Films retrospective at the MOMA in
New York. His third film, Box of Moonlight, 1996), starring
John Turturro and Sam Rockwell, was premiered at the Venice
Festival, the Toronto Festival and the Sundance Film Festival.
The Real Blonde, DiCillo’s fourth film, starring Matthew
Modine, Catherine Keener and Daryl Hannah, was the closing
film at the Deauville Festival in 1997 and the opening film
at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998. His latest film for
the moment is Double Whammy, with Denis Leary and Steve
Buscemi. Selected for Sundance and Deauville, it was also
shown at the Gijón Festival in 2001. At the present
time he is preparing his next film, Delirious, with his
friend Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt and Scarlett Johansson,
which will start shooting in December this year. |
Up
| 
|
MARTA
ESTEBAN |
| Born in Barcelona,
she studied Economics and Music. She lived in Peru, where
she directed the documentaries Y se hace el silencio (1977),
Ayllu sin tierra (1980, Gran Prix at the Oberhausen Festival),
Misti (1982) and Lucre (1983). When she came back to Barcelona,
she worked as a director at the new Catalan Television Station-Televisió
de Catalunya (1985-1991), on the programmes Curar-se en
salut, Cinema 3 and El món del cinema and the feature
on the Swiss director Alain Tanner El hombre y su sombra
(1991). In 1995 she made the documentary Conflictos olvidados
for Spanish Television. Since 1991 she has been executive
producer and a shareholder in Messidor Films, with whom
she has produced Alain Tanner (Le Journal de Lady M / The
Diary of Lady M in 1992 and Fleurs de Sang / Blood Flowers
in 2001), Ken Loach (Land and Freedom in 1994) and Cesc
Gay (Krámpack / Nico and Dani in 1999 and En la ciudad/
In the City in 2003). Her latest productions have been with
the directors Joaquín Oristrell (Inconscientes /
Unconscious in 2004) and Felipe Vega (Nubes de verano /
Summer Clouds in 2004). In the year 2000 with a group of
professionals she founded the production company Impossible
Films, which has produced a short film by Daniel Gimelberg
(1150 Kg in 2003) and a full-length film by Joel Joan (Excuses!
in 2003). At the moment Impossible Films is taking part
in the international co-production Le livre à render
(A Book of Influence), the latest film by Raúl Ruiz
(in postproduction), is producing El Diario Argentino (The
Argentinian Diary), a fictional documentary by Guadalupe
Pérez (currently being shot), and is preparing the
full-length film Golpes, that will be directed by Luis Prieto.
With Messidor Films she is preparing California, the latest
project by Cesc Gay. In 1996 the Generalitat de Catalunya
(Autonomous Government of Catalonia) presented Marta Esteban
with the National Film Award for her work in the fields
of film production and screening. |
Up
| 
|
LAURA
MORANTE |
| Born in Santa
Fiora, Grosseto (Italy). She studied dance and at a very
early age began a career in the theatre with Carmelo Bene
who cast her as Ophelia in his own personal adaptation of
Hamlet before she was twenty. She made her debut in films
in 1980 with Oggetti smarritti, by Giuseppe Bertolucci and
a year later played Ricky Tognazzi’s ambiguous girlfriend
in his brother Bernardo Bertolucci’s La tragedia di
un uomo ridícolo. In the same year she had a daughter
and met Nanni Moretti, who cast her as the object of his
affections in Sogni d’oro and worked with her again
three years later in Bianca. Elegant, sensitive, rigorous
and passionate, Laura Morante established herself as one
of the most interesting young Italian actresses, and was
not only in demand with the most enterprising Italian directors,
but was also sought after by various foreign filmmakers.
In the mid eighties she moved to Paris where she was based
while working in films in Italy, Spain and France: Alain
Tanner in La vallée fantôme (1987), Gianni
Amelio in I ragazzi di via Panisperna (1988), Gabriele Salvatores
in Turné (1990) or Vicente Aranda in La mirada del
otro (1998). As a highly versatile actress she didn’t
hesitate to work with directors who were little-known or
newcomers such as Paolo Virzì (Ferie d’agosto,
1996), Roberto Faenza (Marianna Ucrìa, 1997) or Cristina
Comencini (Liberate i pesci!, 2000), which was made for
television. Throughout this period she continued to work
in the theatre where she performed Le relazione pericolose
in a production by Mario Monicelli or Moi, by Benno Besson.
In 2001 she worked again with Nanni Moretti in the award-winning
film La stanza del figlio (Son’s Room), in the heart-rending
role of a mother whose son dies. Her past as a dancer meant
she was able to give a highly credible performance as Yolanda,
the politically committed dance teacher, in The Dancer Upstairs,
John Malkovich’s directorial debut. Michele Placido,
Gabriele Muccino, Carlo Verdone, Chris Nahon y Angelo Longoni
are the directors of her last few films. |
Up
| 
|
EDUARDO
SERRA |
| Born in Lisbon
(Portugal) in 1943, at the age of 19 he moved to Paris where
he studied at the Film School and later graduated in Art
History at the Sorbonne. In 1970 he began to work as a cameraman’s
assistant alongside Pierre Lhomme, Claude Renoir or Jean-François
Robin in films by Ariane Mnouchkine, Alain Cavalier, Colin
Serreau or Patrice Leconte. His friendship with the latter,
who he worked with for the first time on Les Bronzés,
in 1978, has meant that Serra has been the director of photography
on ten of his films. In the nearly twenty-five years that
have gone by since he became a director of photography in
1980, Serra has lit almost fifty films. He has regularly
collaborated with Claude Chabrol, for whom he has worked
with on four films, including his last two: La Fleur du
mal (The Flower of Evil) and La Demoiselle d’honneur
(The Bridesmaid), and his field of activity has not been
restricted to Portugal, his native land where he has shot
with Fernando Lopes, Luis Felipe Rocha, Joao Mario Grillo
or José Fonseca Costa, (among others), or to France,
his adopted country. In 1993 he worked with Vincent Ward,
on Map of the Human Heart, shot in the frozen deserts of
the Arctic and five years later, he created a world of colours
and dreams for him in What Dreams May Come. He investigated
the light in the faintly lit interiors in Benôit Barbier’s
L’amour conjugal, and especially created a light that
“explains” the characters in Michael Winterbottom’s
Jude, 1996. With The Wings of the Dove by Iain Softley,
1997, he was nominated for an Oscar for the first time.
Interested in investigating light, he doesn’t hesitate
to work with directors making their film debuts if the project
enables him to experiment, as was the case in Peter Webber’s
Girl with a Pearl Earring, for which he won the Award for
Best Photography at the San Sebastián Festival last
year, and was also nominated for an Oscar for the second
time. His most recent work includes Unbreakable (2000),
by M. Night Shyamalan and Kevin Spacey’s Beyond the
Sea, 2004. |
Up
| 
|
DITO
TSINTSADZE |
| Born in Tbilisi
(Georgia) in 1957, from 1975 to 1981 he studied at the Film
and Theatre Institute in Tbilisi where he was taught by
Eldar Shengelaya and Otar Iosseliani. In the eighties and
nineties he worked in Georgia as director’s assistant
with various filmmakers and in 1984 he directed his first
short film, White Nights. For Georgian television he made
Dakhatuli tsre (The Drawn Circle) in 1988, and the short
films Stumrebi (Guests) in 1990, and Sakhli (Home) (TV movie)
in 1992. The short film still interests him as can be seen
from the fact that in 2002 he shot a new short film called
Eine Erotische Geschichte (An erotic tale). In the late
nineties he moved to Berlin, where he currently lives. He
has directed three full-length films, Zghvardze (On the
border), 1993, which won the Silver Leopard at the Locarno
Festival and the Golden Eagle at the International Black
Sea Nations Film Festival in 1993; Lost Killers, 2000, shown
in the “Un certain regard” section at Cannes
in 2000 and at Zabaltegi in the same year. Lost Killers
took part in festivals like the East European Youth Cinema
Festival in Cottbus (Germany), and at the Salonica Festival
where it won the Award for best director and best actor.
Schussangst, his latest film, won the Golden Shell at the
San Sebastián Festival last year. Dito Tsintsadze
is a versatile man who likes to act in films by his friends,
such as Vremya nashego detstva, directed by Zurab Tutberidze
in Georgia in 1987, or The Crossing, by Nora Hoppe, screened
in the Official Section at the San Sebastián Festival
in 1999. His spirit of enquiry has led him to compose the
music for three of his films: Eine Erotische Geschichte,
Lost Killers and Schussangst. |
Up |
