by Mercedes Chatelin

The Spanish film “ReAlive”, a science fiction saga just won the Best Fantasy Film Award of the 37^th Oporto International Film Festival - Fantasporto 2017. The film was directed by Mateo Gil, the writer of such films as “Vanilla Sky” (with Tom Cruise) ou “Agora” (with Rachel Weiz). “Realive” is about a man with an incurable disease whose body is frozen, waking up many years later, hoping Medicine already has a solution for his case. The film also took the Best Screenplay Award.

The Best Director Award went to Irish director Liam Gavin for his film “A Dark Song”, the story of a mother searching for her dead daughter in an empty house. This film was also granted the Best Actress Award for Catherine Walker’s acting.  Frederick Koehler impressed the jury with his performance in “The Evil Within” by Andrew Getty, and took the Best Actor Award. The Best Visual Effects Award went to Drew Casson and his sci-fi adventure, “The Darkest Dawn”. The Special Award of this fantasy jury went to “Saving Sally”, by Philipino director Avid Liongoren, a hugely entertaining feature in which live action is mixed with animation, approaching very serious issues such as domestic violence. “Punch the Clock” (A Repartição do Tempo), by Brazilian Santiago Dellape took a Special Mention for his vision of time travelling and “Cenizo” by Jon Mikel Caballero won Best Fantasy Short.

In the Directors Week competition the winner was the Phillipino film “Ordinary People” by Eduardo W. Roy, a street drama about a very young couple whose baby is stolen and given away to rich people.  The Special Award of this general competition went to the Egypcian  “Sins of the Flesh” by Khaled el Agar which also took the Best Actress Award (for  Nahed em Sebai who presented the film in the festival). This feature is a love and adulterous story of a young woman set in the Spring of 2011 that took to the deposition of Mubarak. The South Korean actor Park Ji-Il, took the top award for “The Net”, by Kim Ki Duk. Also from Korea came the winner of the Best Director Award of the Directors Week, Kim Jee-Woon for his “The Age of Shadows” and Hungarian Iván Szabó and Roland Vranik took the Best Screenplay in the saga of a black man who seeks to become a citizen but is always prevented from achieving his goal.

The Audience Award was for “Saving Sally”, and the Critics Award went to “Division 19” by Suzie Halewood (UK) and and “Caught” by Jamie Patterson (UK).

Fantasporto, chosen as one of the ten reasons to visit Oporto, recently elected as the Best European Destination, welcomed several world premieres and over 200 foreign guests to introduce their films on the stage of the Rivoli Theatre.