The 16th Films from the South festival has now ended and has set an new audience record with 22 000 tickets sold. This years festival has been an incredible success and the response from the audience and our collaborators has been better than ever before.

The following films are the award winners at the 16th Films from the South festival:

The Silver Mirror: Water by Deepa Mehta
The jury's special mention: Elsa & Fred by Marcos Carnevale
Films from the South Honorary Award: Abbas Kiarostami
The FIPRESCI Award: Climates by Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
The Oslo Municipal Cinemas Award:
The director of the FIPRESCI prize winner Climates, Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
The Audience Award: Elsa and Fred by Marcos Carnevale


THE JURY'S STATEMENTS FOR THE AWARDS

The Silver Mirror: Water av Deepa Mehta

It is a warm, yet painful story about fate and injustices grounded on religion and heavy traditions.
It gives us a unique insight into a closed world.
The film experience stays with you after leaving the movie theatre.
It is a film with a high aesthetic awareness in it's use of sound and images.
It tells a story from a period and a country subjected to great upheavals, when people come to believe that old traditions can be changed.
In addition to a stylistically assured use of sound and image, the director is passionately engaged for the plight of women and against a view of humanity still widespread in India.
It is a film that is aware of the past, giving us an insight into a mindset that still governs many people in this world. From a time when childless widows had to live an entire life in renunciation to honour their dead husbands.

A unanimous jury has decided that the main prize shall go to Water by the Indian director Deepa Mehta.

The jury's special mention
The jury also wants to draw attention to another film, an Argentinean vitamin pill against dejection and bad mood: Elsa and Fred.

It has an impressively precise storytelling style with a tight direction. Warm, funny, surprising, well-acted and not least charming.
With its 82-year-old protagonist, the film presents a marvellous counterweight to the contemporary idealisation of youth.

The jury consisted of Geir Bergkastet (The Director of Oslo Municipal Cinemas), Anne Grete Preus (Artist) and Sirin Eide (Director)


The Films from the South Honorary Award: Abbas Kiarostami
This award is new this year and shall each year go to an individual, for example a director, actor or producer who the festival believes has made an outstanding effort for the art of film in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Abbas Kiarostami received the Films from the South Honorary Award for his work within film, photography and poetry.He was present to receive the award.

The FIPRESCI (The International Association of Film Critics) Award: Climates by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
The winner has been selected by the FIPRESCI jury from the films in the New Directions programme. The jury consisted of author and film critic Charlotte Glaser Munch (Film & Kino, Norway), film critic Jonas Varsted Kirkegaard (Information, Denmark) and film critic Margarita Chapatte (Informatiu Cinema, Spain)

The director, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, will also receive The Oslo Municipal Cinemas Award of NOK 50 000. The prize is given by Oslo Municipal Cinemas.

Oslo Municipal Cinemas wishes to inspire filmmakers who dare to utilise a cinematic language of quality and originality. As a prominent cultural institution in Oslo, we want to secure a diversity of quality films in our movie theatres. Without good films and filmmakers we will not succeed in this.

The Audience Award: Elsa and Fred by Marcos Carnevale
The winner has received the highest number of votes from the festival audience. The votes were given by SMS. The film will be bought by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and will be shown during next year's Films from the South. The award consists of NOK 75 000 and every film in this year's programme has competed for this award.
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