Andrew Haigh’s Weekend is young people’s jury favorite in Rotterdam

British film Weekend by Andrew Haigh (UK, 2011), selected in IFFR’s Bright Future section, has won the MovieSquad IFFR Award. The young people’s jury announced the winning film during the International Film Festival Rotterdam this afternoon during the MovieSquad Award Ceremony.

The MovieSquad jury consisted of five members aged 15 to 19 years: Nick Golterman, Manon Keus, Symen Hoogesteger, Juliette van den Dorpel en Roxanne Doorn. They have seen films, met directors and journalists and enjoyed film parties. MovieSquad gives young people the opportunity to fully experience a film festival and to present their opinions on film. They selected the winner out of the twenty festival films that were up for consideration. Out of these twenty films, the jury also nominated the films Lena (Christophe van Rompaey, The Netherlands/Belgium, 2011) and Play (Ruben Östlund, Sweden/Denmark/Finland, 2011) but in the end chose Weekend by Andrew Haigh as their winner.

In their statement about Weekend the jury said:

“Realistic and subtle, two words that describe this love story best. The wonderful acting, great use of light and beautiful conversations made it very pure and fascinating to watch, even the sexual scenes. The ending was just right!”

The winner of the MovieSquad Award has a chance to be programmed in one of the film educational programmes of EYE Film Institute Netherlands, such as MovieZone.

Weekend will be released in The Netherlands May 2012 by ABC-Cinemien.

MovieSquad IFFR is an initiative of EYE Film Institute Netherlands in cooperation with the International Film Festival Rotterdam and is sponsored by SNS REAAL Fonds