The bright French comedy “The Innocent” (2022) won the Grand Prize for Masterful Literary Adaptation in the CineLibri 2022 Feature Film Competition! Directed by Louis Garrel, who also plays one of the main roles, the film is inspired by true events and written by Tanguy Viel, Naïla Guiguet and Louis Garrel. “The Innocent” was favored in competition with nine delightfully crafted book-to-film adaptations, among which “Nostalgia” directed by Mario Martone, “Peter von Kant” directed by François Ozon, “The Quiet Girl” directed by Colm Bairéad, “Living” directed by Oliver Hermanus, “The Eight Mountains” directed by Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch, and “Before, Now & Then” directed by Kamila Andini.
The award ceremony took place on October 21 in Hall 1 of the National Palace of Culture in the presence of the esteemed members of the Jury: Amanda Sthers, Olivier Bourdeaut, Mario Grigorov, Yassmin Pucci and Kamen Kalev. In his capacity as president, the Bulgarian film director Kamen Kalev announced the winner and the reasons for the decision: “The prize is awarded to “The Innocent” because of the masterful direction, the balanced rhythm of the action, the gradual and complex unfolding of the plot. The Jury appreciated the honest, skillfully nuanced characters, the talented performances and the exciting twists.” Louis Garrel accepted the award in a statement online, thanking the CineLibri organizers and the Jury for the honor.
This year, for the first time, the festival held a competition for the best documentary film with a Jury represented by Asen Vladimirov, Katerina Lambrinova and Kostadin Bonev. The award was given to the film “The Adventures of Saul Bellow“, directed by the Israeli documentarian Asaf Galay. The Jury in the documentary film competition also awarded an honorary diploma to the film “Theodore Ushev: Invisible Connections”, a co-production of Bulgaria and Canada, directed by Borislav Kolev.
For the first time this year, a competition for costume design in contemporary Bulgarian cinema took place. The winner was determined entirely by audience vote. The award went to Velika Prahova for the film “PHI1.618“, the feature film debut of the world-famous Bulgarian animator Theodore Ushev.
On October 30, an awarding ceremony for this year’s winners of the short film competition took place at the Lumiere Cinema. The following titles were nominated: Seven Deadly Sins (based on stories by F. Dostoevsky), Cerebral Poetry (inspired by the poetry of Rosen Karamfilov), Anyuta (based on a story by A.P. Chekhov), Boat in the Forest (based on a work by Nikolay Khaitov) and Tracks of Time (inspired by a story by Dino Buzzati). The Jury in the short film competition was represented by Yana Titova, Yulian Spasov and Petar Valchev. The Grand Prize was awarded to Cerebral Poetry and the animation Seven Deadly Sins received the Jury’s “Special Mention” award.
The project takes place with the financial support of the National Culture Fund under the action “Program for Recovery and Development of Private Cultural Organizations”.