Award Ceremony NZ International Film Festival 2011

This year we saw about 40 feature films and 8 shorts between us. I was disappointed at missing out on seeing Incendies and Sleeping Beauty, but Bill Gosden et al jam far too many films into 16 days. The Festival really needs to be stretched over four weeks. For me this year's Film Festival was the year of slacker movies, French films and thrillers.

I shall put my ten-cents worth in italics - Anne

Best Film
I can't decide on a best film and rank three films (all thrillers) as equally good:

• The Man from Nowhere - Tarantino's flair for stylish violence meets Spielberg flair for pathos and humour.
• Point Blank - Underground, overground, on the run in Paris.
• Viva Riva! - Où est Riva? Everyone wants a piece of this man.
  
  I didn't see many thrillers (which was probably unfortunate, given Ian's ratings) but I think The Trip deserves best film with The First Grader as runner up.

Best Documentary
Nominations:

• Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3D - Werner Herzog, an acquired taste?
• Hot Coffee - Hoodwinking the public about frivolous lawsuit.
• Guilty Pleasures - Mills and Boon, the inside story.
• Sons of Perdition - The down side of polygamy.
• Project Nim - Chimps belong with chimps.
• Tabloid - How not to date a Mormon.
• Windfall - How not to introduce wind energy.
• Page One: Inside the NY Times - Will journalism be missed?
• Moving - From South Korea to Christchurch.

My pick is Tabloid, a mind-boggling documentary about an obsessive woman who goes the extra 5000 miles to get what she wants.

My award would go to Hot Coffee

Best Drama
Nominations:

• Weekend - A gay romance.
• The Forgiveness of Blood - Home detention Albanian style.
• Submarine - Dysfunctional in Wales.
• Tomboy - Laure is Mikael today.
• Footnote - The Professors Schkolnik, father and son.
• She Monkeys - "Sexually power play and small-town emotional austerity".
• Love Like Poison - Girl comes of age.
• Terri - The picked-on kid.
• Meek's Cutoff - Does the guide know the way?
• The First Grader - 84 year old Kenyan, Maruge, takes the government at its word when it promises free education for all.
• Taxi Driver - Being driven mad by New York.

My pick is Meek's Cutoff, a study of the dynamics in small group leadership and decision making.

For me The First Grader was way out in front.

Best Comedy
Nominations:

• Let the Bullets Fly - A Chinese shaggy dog story.
• Happy, Happy - Misbehaving in the snow.
• Romantics Anonymous - The emotionally challenged find ... each other.
• The Salt of Life - The power of women over men.
• The Trip - Two comedians, one car.
• Nothing to Declare - Franco-Belgian customs.
• The Women on the 6th Floor - Finding out how the other half live.
• A Cat in Paris - Is Dino Zoé's cat or Nico's cat?
• The Guard - The Irish Garda and CIA "work together".
• Troll Hunter - The Norwegian Blair Witch Project.
• Love Story - Woman on subway with cake.

My pick is Let the Bullets Fly but if that is too violent for you, my next pick is Romantics Anonymous.
I loved Romantics Anonymous but The Trip has to be best comedy as well as best film.

Best Thriller
Nominations:

• Point Blank - Run Samuel Run.
• Elite Squad: The Enemy Within - What happens if you kill all the baddies in town?
• The Guard - Not a recruitment advert for the Irish police.
• Viva Riva! - A hot time Kinshasa.
• The Man from Nowhere - Don't mess with the mild mannered pawnbroker.
• A Cat in Paris - Will Zoé escape the evil Victor Costa?

See the Best Film above.

French Film
In order from best to worst:

1. Point Blank - Underground, overground, on the run in Paris.
2. Romantics Anonymous - The emotionally challenged find ... each other.
3. Nothing to Declare - Franco-Belgian customs.
4. The Women on the 6th Floor - Finding out how the other half live.
5. A Cat in Paris - Is Dino Zoé's cat or Nico's cat?
6. Tomboy - Laure is Mikael today.
7. Love Like Poison - Girl comes of age.
8. Le Havre - An unrealistic film.
   
   I thought Romantics Anonymous and Nothing to Declare were equally good.

Slacker Movies
A slacker is someone who tries their best not to work. In slacker movies not much happens. The film that gave its name to the genre was Richard Linklater's 1991 film Slacker. But filmakers were making slacker movies before the term was coined. This year we saw an extra-ordinary number of these films (and I am too slack to pick the best, or worst):

• Terri - Kids go to school.
• Submarine - Dysfunctional in Wales.
• Taxi Driver - Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro's 1970's slacker movie.
• The Innkeepers - Slacker ghost hunters get scared.
• The Salt of Life - Slacker looks for love.
• She Monkeys - Girly power-play.
• Love Like Poison - A girl's summer hols.
• Happy, Happy - Misbehaving in the snow.
• Meek's Cutoff - Mucking about in Oregon.
  
  .........Yawn.....

Odds and ends

• A Cat in Paris - The animation.
• Space Battleship Yamato - The sci-fi film.
• 13 Assassins - The samurai movie.
• Love Story - Mockumentary love story.
• Troll Hunter - Mockumentary horror/comedy.
• The Innkeepers - The ghost story.
• Le Havre - Somewhat strange.
• The Last Circus - Incredibly strange.

Disappointments

• Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3D - Werner Herzog gets distracted.
• Le Havre - Doesn't know what it is.
• The Last Circus - Not quite comedy or horror or serious.
• She Monkeys - Silent teenage mind games.

Best Actors
In order:

1. Brendan Gleeson (Sgt Gerry Boyle) in The Guard
2. Robert DeNiro (Travis Bickle) in Taxi Driver
3. Agnes Kittelsen (Kaja) in Happy, Happy
4. Hoji Fortuna (César) in Viva Riva!
5. Manie Malone (Nora) in Viva Riva!

Benoit Poelvoorde deserves a special mention - he starred in both Nothing to Declare and Romantics Anonymous.

Best Child Actors
In order:

1. Zoé Héran (Laure/Michaël) in Tomboy
2. Kim Sae-ron (So-mi) in The Man from Nowhere
3. Camille Gigot and Jean-Charles Deval (Bertrand and Olivier Joubert) in The Women on the 6th Floor