Here, Then and One Mile Away win top awards in Edinburgh

The 66th Edinburgh International Film Festival wraps its 12-day festival with a closing gala of Disney/Pixar’s Brave, as it hands out its top awards.

The Award for Best Film in the International Feature Competition, supported by Innis & Gunn, went to Mao Mao’s world premiere selection Here, Then.

The jury for the prize, comprised of Elliott Gould, Julietta Sichel and Lav Diaz, said: “The jury acknowledges the festival and its Artistic Director, Chris Fujiwara, for an outstanding, challenging and brave selection of films that included both fiction and documentaries and enabled us to watch the best of the world’s new cinema. Every work we had the privilege to see brought something new and extraordinary to us and choosing the best was a difficult task. After the final deliberations the jury unanimously decided to give the main prize to Here, Then by Mao Mao.

Here, Then is about rootless young people in contemporary China.

A special mention went to Papirosen by Gaston Solnicki. Of that film, the jury added: “Papirosen is a real paradigm for why cinema remains relevant. There is beauty, pain and urgency in this film. For humanity to survive, the world must not forget. This film tells us that the greatest struggle of man is the struggle for the truth.” The film, shot over a decade, records the director’s own Jewish Argentine family.

The Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film, reinstated this year after not being handed out in 2011, went to Penny Woolcock’s One Mile Away, another world premiere at EIFF. The film is about rival Birmingham gang members who attempt to broker a peace agreement after being introduced by the filmmaker.

That jury, comprised of Jim Broadbent, Kiki Sugino and Tiina Lokk, said the film is “a brave and honest film tackling a huge problem with sensitivity and skill, not only charting the efforts to reconcile a community but also showing the great wealth of creativity that is part of that struggle. We are delighted to be able to recognise such a singular achievement.”

Woolcock added: “One Mile Away is about transforming and saving lives. Winning the Michael Powell Award is a tremendous boost for us to help get the film and its message out to where it needs to be in our inner cities.”

The performance awards in British feature film went to Andrea Riseborough and Brid Brennan, both for James Marsh’s Shadow Dancer.

Best international short was Dinosaur Eggs In The Living Room by Brazil’s Rafael Urban. The jury gave special mentions to Carbon by Craig Webster and The Waves by Miguel Fonseca.

Best British short and the McLaren Award for New British Animation went to Will Anderson’s The Making Of Longbird. A special acting commendation for acting went to Tom Phillips in Joe Carter’s Fun Times.

The Student Critics Jury Award went to Jang Kun-jae’s Sleepless Night.