China takes top honors as Marrakech festival wraps up

Kidney organ donation drama “The Donor” topped the 16th Marrakech Film Festival on Saturday, winning its Golden Star Festival Grand Prize, Variety reported.
The Marrakech Festival’s Jury Prize was awarded to circus docu-fiction “Mister Universo.” Best Actor went to Baldur Finarsson and Blaer Hinricksson for their roles in Icelandic coming-of-age drama “Heartstone,” by Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson. Best Actress was awarded to Fereshteh Hosseini for Afghan-Iranian drama “Parting,” by Navid Mahmoudi.
Fourteen competition films competed this year including five freshman titles and two sophomore outings.
The jury was presided by Hungarian director, Béla Tarr, accompanied by Lisandro Alonso, Bille August, Jason Clarke, Suzanne Clément, Bruno Dumont, Kalki Koechlin, Fatima Harandi and Jasmine Trinca.
“The Donor” director Xang Qiwu, whose film is a critique of the lengths to which the poor in China are willing to go to advance their material prosperity, picked the award up in person saying that “being shown in such a festival for such a young director was a great honor.”
On the red carpet, jury president Tarr admitted that he was deeply moved by the winning films. Jury member August added that he saw excellent films from different parts of the word and described his experience on the jury as a great education.
Fellow jury member Clarke concurred: “It reminded me of who I am and where I come from. They are all very heartfelt personal stories, wherever they came from, they are wonderful films that really touched me.”
Frimmel dedicated his award to his uncle who fled Nazi Germany and was given asylum in Morocco. “I would like to thank Morocco,” he said on stage.

Source: Arab News