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'Utama' by Alejandro Loayza Grisi, which had already won the grand jury prize in the top World Cinema Dramatic competition at Sundance this year, got named in top honors at the closing ceremony of the Transilvania Film Festival on Saturday night. 'Utama' was also honoured with the festival's Audience Award.
Grisi's feature debut tells the story of an elderly couple in the Bolivian highlands who refuse to relocate to the city despite the constant threat of drought, as per Variety. In a glowing review, Variety's Peter Debruge described the film as a "sublime, quietly elegiac" character study that "looks quite unlike anything else." "By relying on the simplicity, purity and poetry of his cinematic approach, the director takes the audience on a universal journey, talking about the essence of life, death and everything in between," said the Transilvania jury, praising a film that "gives the audience a deep, multilayered feeling of how fragile our future is." The Best Director award went to Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson for 'Beautiful Beings,' which the jury recognized for the Icelandic filmmaker's "credible, original and brilliant universe," who won the same award in Transylvania in 2017 for 'Heartstone.' The top prize from the festival's "What's Up, Doc?" competition section went to "You Are Ceausescu to Me," Sebastian Mihailescu's experimental docufiction in which a group of young people gather to reenact scenes from the life of the former Romanian dictator. A special jury mention was given to Yuri Ancarani's "Atlantis," which follows a young Venetian who devotes his time to building the fastest speedboat among his set of barchino afficionados, as per reports from Variety. The biggest prize of the festival's "What's up, doc?" competition section went to 'You Are Ceausescu To Me,' Sebastian Mihailescu's experimental docu-fiction in which a group of youngsters come together to re-enact scenes from the life of the former Romanian dictator. A special jury mention went to Yuri Ancarani's 'Atlantis,' which follows a young Venetian who devotes his time to building the fastest speedboat for his group of Barchino fans. Meanwhile, veteran actress Maia Morgenstern was also honoured on Saturday night's ceremony, with the Excellence Award in recognition of a career spanning nearly four decades. (ANI)
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