VINCERE & FISH TANK among winners at the 45th CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL




CHICAGO, October 17, 2009



At the Festival, Chicago audiences are able to choose from 145 films from 45 countries, showcasing both established masters and rising new filmmakers. Competitions were held in the International Feature Film, New Directors, Documentary and Short Film categories, along with a special Chicago Award for a local filmmaker. The Festival’s highest honor is the Gold Hugo, named after the mythological God of Discovery.



Award Winners:
International Feature Film Competition



Gold Hugo for Best Film to MISSISSIPPI DAMNED (US) for its powerful and uncompromising portrait of the compounding frailties and difficulties of a struggling black community.



Silver Hugo for Special Jury Award to FISH TANK (UK) for its aesthetic boldness in taking us into a grim public-housing environment and showing us the transcendent spirit of a young girl that struggles to overcome the adult lies that engulf her.



Silver Hugo for Best Director to Marco Bellocchio (VINCERE, Italy) for taking us into the privileged details of a love story so well drawn that we cannot renege on what we have felt between the two main characters.



Silver Hugo for Best Actress to Giovanna Mezzogiorno of VINCERE (Italy) for her astonishing understanding of love, its depth and its degradation.



Silver Hugo for Best Actor to Filippo Timi of VINCERE (Italy) for bringing such a commanding virility to a young Mussolini that we are both entranced and repelled by his climb to power and evil.



Gold Plaque for Best Supporting Actress to Jossie Harris Thacker in MISSISSIPPI DAMNED (US) for her character’s multiple and believable life changes that give us insight into the tragedy that jealousy, alcohol, and neglect can lead to.



Gold Plaque for Best Supporting Actor to Michael Fassbender in FISH TANK (UK) for his stunning charismatic presence that infuses life into this sad family momentarily and then absconds in shameful weakness.



Gold Plaque for Best Screenplay to Tina Mabry of MISSISSIPPI DAMNED (USA) for it’s well observed unfolding character depictions in a Mississippi community that keep us both fascinated and horrified by the events that life brings.



Gold Plaque for Best Cinematography to Daniele Ciprì (VINCERE, Italy) who has taken the human face, given its images breath in every sense, and allowed us into each second of this film’s dramatic contortions.



Gold Plaque for Best Art Direction to HIPSTERS (Russia) for its infectiously colorful and imaginative sets and its stimulating counterbalancing of a modern generation set against Soviet darkness.



Silver Plaque to BACKYARD (Mexico) for its exposé of the horrible crimes of violence against women in Juarez.



The International Feature Film Competition Jury includes jury president Jacqueline Bisset (UK), Shohreh Aghdashloo (Iran), Duane Byrge (US), Pablo Cruz (Mexico), and Bruce Sheridan (New Zealand).