Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Multi-award winner and Oscar nominee director Yorgos Lanthimos won the Sydney Film Festival with his latest film Alps.
The film was chosen among twelve competition finalists for the Festival Official Competition prize, Australia’s most prestigious and lucrative film award, which is given annually to "courageous, audacious and cutting-edge films" from all over the world.
The film follows the stories of Alps, a company whose personnel act as replacements for people recently deceased. Head of the festival jury, Rachel Ward, said Alps "melds pathos, black humour and taut menace in a film that is at once challenging and highly rewarding."
The film has also received the 2011 Venice Film Festival Prize for Best Screenplay. The talented Greek director earned international renown in 2009, when his previous film Dogtooth won numerous festival prizes, including the "UnCertain Regard" prize at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival and an Academy nomination for Best Foreign Film.
