The 2014 Palm Springs International Film Festival, the fest that sets the stage for the year’s film festival circuit wrapped up yesterday. It ran from 3 to 13 January and screened 191 films from 60 countries including 46 of the 76 foreign language entries for this year’s Academy Awards. According to the festival’s director, Darryl Macdonald, the real standout of this edition was the “overall excellence in the year’s festival lineup, proving that the phenomenally strong year we’ve witnessed in Hollywood filmmaking has been more than matched by the strong upswing in quality filmmaking worldwide.”
The Mercedes-Benz Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature went to Lakshmi by the Indian director Nagesh Kukunoor. The line-up also included Belle by Amma Asante, The Broken Circle Breakdown by Felix van Groeningen, Burning Bush by Agnieszka Holland, Philipp Kadelbach’s Generation War, The Keeper of Lost Causes by Mikkel Nørgaard, Teresa Fabik’s Love and Lemons, Zaza Urushadze’s Tangerines, Georg Maas and Judith Kaufmann’s Two Lives, The Verdict by Jan Verheyen and Words and Pictures by Fred Schepisi.
The Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature went to Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia directed by Nicholas Wrathall.
The FIPRESCI Prize for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year was awarded to Felix van Groeningen The Broken Circle Breakdown while international critics gave Mads Mikkelsen the Best Actor of the Year in a Foreign Language Film Award for his performance in The Hunt by Thomas Vinterberg and Bérénice Bejo the Best Actress of the Year in a Foreign Language Film Award for her performance in Asghar Farhadi’s The Past.
The New Voices/New Visions Award went to Andrea Pallaoro’s Medeas while Left Foot Right Foot by Germinal Roaux received the Special Mention.
For the complete program and lineup as well as the complete list of this year’s winner, please visit the festival’s official website.
The 26th edition of the Palm Springs International Film Festival will be held from 2 to 12 January 2015. See you then and there!
Source and photo: the official webpage of the Palm Springs International Film Festival.
