Festival Summary, Rankings, Awards

Our Japanese picks were pretty poor this year...and we skipped a few that seemed not even that good. Oh well, some years it's good, some it's not..all part of the annual festival thing.

We did see films that digested well with the juries:

Special Grand Prix of the jury :
NOODLE by Ayelet Menahemi (Israël)

Golden Zenith for the Best First Fiction Feature Film :
LA CAJA (THE WOODEN BOX) by Juan Carlos Falcón (Spain)

Bronze Zenith for the First Fiction Feature Film :
DONG SUN (BAMBOO SHOOTS) by Jian Yi (China)

Special Mention in the First Feature Film Category:
WIND MAN by Khuat Akhmetov (Russie)

Jonathan’s lineup and ranking, with my comments in brackets, is as follows:

Buy the DVD:
01- Galilee Eskimos (Israel)
01- Noodle (Israel)
03- Wind Man (Russia) (I’d put Wind Man first, but let’s not quibble).

Rent the DVD:
04- Flying Lesson (Italy, UK, France, India)
05- The Wooden Box (Spain, Portugal)
06- Dong Sun (China)
07- Where Are You Going Moshe? (Morocco, Canada) (Not for me, thanks).

Watch on TV:
08- All the Days Before Tomorrow (United States, Canada)
09- 53 Winter Days (Spain)
10- L's Revolt (Bulgaria)

Watch on TV and don't worry about missing a few minutes because you were channel-surfing:
11- The Mamiya Brothers (Japan)
12- Oh-Oku, The Women of the Inner Palace (Japan)
13- Mein Führer (Germany)
14- Dark Corners of the Shelves (Japan)
15- Kuro-Obi (Japan)
16- Férfiakt (Hungary)

Keep channel-surfing:
None

Shorts:
Rewind is the one that stood out for me.

Documentaries (in no particular order):
In the Shadow of the Moon (United States) (YES! I’ll probably buy this one)
Meat Loaf: Search for Paradise (United States) (rent!)
Running With Arnold (United States) (see it one way or another, really!)
The Quest for the Missing Piece (Israel) cute…especially if you’re from a group that practices male circumcision, and/or are LGBT-minded.

That’s it, folks! We had fun – we’re tired and glad it’s over, but sad that we’ll have to wait until August, 2008 for the next batch of International films. Thanks to my dear husband Jonathan for sharing the festival with me, and for Cinemoo for introducing it to me all those years ago!