Selfish Giant wins Cannes Europa Cinemas Label

The prize recognises the best European film in the Directors’ Fortnight section, as voted upon by a jury of four exhibitors from the Europa Cinemas network.

This year’s jury was Alice Black of the Dundee Contemporary Arts (UK); Koyo Yamashita of the Image Forum-Tokyo (Japan); Rafael Maestro of the Ciné Passion en Périgord - St. Astier (France) and Petar Mitric of EuroCinema - Subotica (Serbia).

The jury said in a statement: “The Selfish Giant was a unanimous decision for us. A supremely well judged film - delicate, powerfully emotional, and brilliantly acted with remarkable editing and photography.

“It is a tough subject but there is hope in this moving story of the friendship between two boys.

” A very successful contemporary update of the Oscar Wilde fairy story, we feel that that this film will be especially useful for engaging younger audiences - a worthy winner of the Label, therefore.”

Tracy O’Riordan produced the film with Film4’s Katherine Butler and the BFI’s Lizzie Francke as executive producers. The film is a BFI and Film4 presentation of a Moonspun Films production. Protagonist Pictures handles sales.

This marks Barnard’s first fully fictional film, after her acclaimed documentary hybrid The Arbor.

This is the 10th time the prize has been awarded, and past recipients include Breathing, 12:08 East of Bucharest and Le Quattro Volte.

The award comes with additional promotion for the film across the network, which includes 1,170 cinemas.