The international jury, headed by veteran Romanian director Lucian Pintilie, praised the film 'for its concise visual richness in dealing with an emotionally enclosed drama of passion and adultery.' Euphoria had its world premiere at Sochi's Kinotavr Russian film festival last June before then going on to win prizes in Venice, Warsaw and the Russian NIKA awards.
Meanwhile, Serbian filmmaker Srdan Golubovic's The Trap (Klopka) followed its Sofia Grand Prix with two goEast prizes - best director and the FIPRESCI Award. Croatian director Ognen Svilicic's Armin received the Federal Foreign Office Award for a film whose 'artistic originality creates cultural diversity'. Both films had had their world premieres in the Forum section of the Berlinale in February.
The jury gave the documentary award of the Hertie Foundation to the veteran Polish filmmaker Marcel Lozinski for his 'distinctive and ironic essay' How To Do It, and with two honorary mentions being bestowed on the Russian film Playing The Victim by Kirill Serebrennikov and the Bosnian actor Emir Hadzihafisbegovic for his performance as the father in Armin.
For the first time this year, the Robert Bosch Foundation used the festival as a platform to announce the names of the three winning teams of young filmmakers from Germany and Eastern Europe whose joint projects - the German-Bulgarian animation film Anna Blume, the German-Polish short feature Przy Jazn - Freundschaft, and the German-Estonian documentary Normal - Estnische Und Deutsche Lebenswelten - will receive a total of $187,011 (Euros 140,000) funding as part of the Foundation's Promotional Prize for Joint Film Productions.
More than 9,000 visitors - 10% more than last year - came to the screenings of the festival's 150 films and sidebar events such as a special screening of Volker Schlöndorff's Strike - with lead actress Kath arina Thalbach in attendance - and a symposium on film and religion in Eastern Europe.
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