Editor

9th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival that finished on Sunday was a feast for Asian films as two of the jury's main prizes went to the works from this region. At festival closing ceremony on the 10 December the Grand Prix of competition programme EurAsia was handed to the Chinese film "Shanghai Dreams"
(dir. Wang Xiaoshuai), Hou Shiao-shien from Taiwan received the award for best director for his epic "Three Times". The Audience Award went to Asia as well - Kim Ki-duk won Estonian viewers’ favour already second year in a row, this time with "The Bow".

Altogether 13 prizes were given out at the festival, among them also the first ever Scottish Leader Estonian Film Award. The cash prize of 50,000 EEK went to Hardi Volmer for his “Pärnography”, a film-portrait of internationally acknowledged Estonian animation film director Priit Pärn.

Including the sub-festivals (Sleepwalkers Student Film Festival; Children and Youth Film Festival "Just Film"; Animation Film Festival "Animated Dreams") BNFF screened altogether 450 films in 490 screenings. Besides Tallinn and Tartu the festival had additional screenings in smaller towns Narva, Jõhvi and Viljandi – involving 16 screening halls in 9 cinemas.

60 countries were represented at the BNFF this year, some of them for the first time (like Angola). There were 50 different languages spoken in the festival films.

The biggest audience of the festival was gathered by "C.R.A.Z.Y." (Canada), "Eros" (Hong Kong-China-USA-Italy), “The Bow” (South Korea) and two Japanese films “Howl’s Moving Castle” and "Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachtani?". The latter was also the most popular among the EurAsia competition films. Audience also rushed to see Michael Haneke’s “Hidden” (France-Austria) and “Broken Flowers” (USA) by Jim Jarmusch. The screenings of these films were sold out already before the festival started.

According to the first estimates the number of the festival audience was around 45, 000. Festival’s homepage (www.poff.ee) was frequented around 65,000 times, having the highest number of visits on the 5th of December with 5,000.

Festival hosted 250 foreign guests from 34 countries.

The 10th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival takes place from 25th November to 10th December, 2006.


9th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival awards


GRAND PRIX FOR BEST EURASIAN FILM (with cash award of 10.000 EUR)
SHANGHAI DREAMS / QING HONG (Wang Xiaoshuai, China)

JURY PRIZE FOR THE BEST DIRECTOR
HOU SHIAO-SHIEN (Three Times / Zui Hao De Shi Guang, Taiwan (China))

JURY PRIZE FOR THE BEST ACTOR
JESPER CHRISTENSEN (Manslaughter / Drabet, Denmark)

JURY PRIZE FOR THE BEST ACTRESS
MARIA LUNDQVIST (Mother of Mine / Äideistä parhain, Finland / Sweden)

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE
THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU / MOARTEA DOMNULUI LAZARESCU (Cristi Puiu, Romania)


SCOTTISH LEADER ESTONIAN FILM AWARD (cash award 50,000 EEK)
PÄRNOGRAPHY / MEES ANIMATSOONIST (Hardi Volmer)


NETPAC JURY AWARD
EARTH AND ASHES / KHAKESTAR-O-KHAK (Atiq Rahimi, Afghanistan / France)


FICC JURY AWARD – DON QUIJOTE AWARD
MANSLAUGHTER / DRABET (Per Fly, Denmark)

SPECIAL MENTION
THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU / MOARTEA DOMNULUI LAZARESCU (Cristi Puiu, Romania)


ESTONIAN FILM CRITICS’ AWARD
GARPASTUM (Alexey German Jr, Russia)


THE PRIZE OF THE POSTIMEES JURY
GARPASTUM (Alexey German Jr, Russia)


AUDIENCE AWARD
THE BOW / HWAL (Kim Ki-Duk, South Korea)


LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
ELBERT TUGANOV (Animation Director, Estonia)



CHILDREN AND YOUTH FILM FESTIVAL JUST FILM
AWARDS

BEST CHILDREN’S FILM
THE COLOUR OF MILK / IKKE NAKEN (Torun Lian, Norway)
SPECIAL MENTION from Children’s Jury
BLACK DIAMOND / SUSKE & WISKE - DE DUISTERE DIAMANT (Rudi Van der Bossche, Belgium)

BEST YOUTH FILM
POPULAR MUSIC / POPULÄRMUSIK FRÅN VITTULA (Reza Bagher, Sweden / Finland)
SPECIAL MENTION from Youth Jury
TURTLES CAN FLY / LAKPOSHTHA HAM PARVAZ MIKONAND (Bahman Ghobadi, Iran / Iraq)
AUDIENCE AWARD – FAVOURITE CHARACTER
JUSTIN (actor Lou Taylor Pucci, THUMBSUCKER, Mike Mills, USA)

ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL ANIMATED DREAMS
AWARDS

GRAND PRIX
THE MILK /MILCH (Igor Kovaljov, USA)
BEST DESIGN
CITY PARADISE (Gaelle Denis, Great Britain)
BEST STORY
MOURIR DE AMOUR (Gil Alkabetz, Germany)
ANOBA nomination for Best Baltic & Scandinavian animation film
A MESSAGE TO THE NEIGHBOURS / SÕNUM NAABRITELE (Priit Tender, Estonia)


SLEEPWALKERS STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL
AWARDS

GRAND PRIX
SUMMER CLOUDS (Axel Danielson, Sweden)

BEST FICTION
GREY AREA (Miika Soini, Finland)

BEST DOCUMENTARY
O.M.V.K. (Kristin Raup, Estonia)

BEST ANIMATION
THE LAST MINUTE / VIIMANE MINUT (Elisabeth Salmin, Estonia)

SPECIAL MENTION
AS USUAL / NAGU IKKA (Ekke Vasli, Estonia)

SPECIAL MENTION
OLLI (Jack Rath, Germany)

SPECIAL MENTION
VAUDEVILLE (Chansoo Kim, Korea / USA)


www.poff.ee/sleepwalkers
www.poff.ee/anima