French Drama 'A Childhood' Wins Top Prize At Chicago International Film Fest
By Joel Wicklund in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 26, 2015 2:30PM
"A Childhood" (Photo: © Les Films du Losange 2015).
A Childhood, a French drama about a teenager dealing with his often-hostile environment, won the Gold Hugo for Best Film, the top prize at the Chicago International Film Festival.
Young performers Alexi Mathieu and Jules Gauzelin (both first-time film actors) also shared Best Male Actor Honors for the film. CIFF's awards were announced this weekend at a ceremony at The Peninsula hotel.
Lizzie Brocheré received Best Female Actor for her sensitive performance in the Dutch drama, Full Contact. CIFF does not give separate leading and supporting acting honors, so Brocheré's win for a role with fairly limited screen time speaks to her impact on the jury members. Full Contact also won for Best Cinematography.
The Brazilian feature Paulina won the Silver Hugo Special Jury Prize (essentially the runner-up award). The excellent Chilean drama of pedophile priests in exile, The Club, won awards for Best Director (Pablo Larrain, whose 2012 feature No was an Academy Award nominee), Best Screenplay and Best Ensemble. Volta à Terra, a portrait of Portuguese farmers, won the Gold Hugo for Best Documentary.
The top award in CIFF's New Directors competition went to Chinese writer-director Pengfei Song for Underground Fragrance. The director previously collaborated on the screenplay for Stray Dogs, from acclaimed Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang (What Time Is It There?).
The Gold Q Award—chosen from CIFF's OUT-Look program devoted to movies about LGBT issues—went to Carol, the highly anticipated new film by Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven, Safe) and starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. Chicago filmmaker Stephen Cone's latest, Henry Gamble's Birthday Party, won the runner-up Silver Q Award in that category.
In what seems like the most dubious honor of the event, the Founder's Award was given to Michael Moore for his latest documentary, Where to Invade Next? While not an entirely bad film (it makes many salient points about areas where the U.S. is sorely lacking), Moore's latest is a lazy tracing of the condescending template that has become his trademark. Certainly nothing in the documentary meets CIFF's description of the award representing "a unique and innovative approach to the art of the moving image."
A full list of Friday night's winners is available here.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story listed the documentary For Grace as winner of CIFF’s Audience Favorite Award. Per clarification from the festival’s press office, the movie was only added to the “Best of the Fest” screenings as an Audience Favorite. The Audience Choice Award, which is the honor the viewing public votes on, will not be announced until after the festival concludes.