BREAKING : SOMERS TOWN WINS MICHAEL POWELL AWARD!

[cudas]

congratulations to all concerned for this terrific win. "Dead Man's Shoes" was pipped to the post for this prestigious prize back in 2004. Good to see that justice has now been done!

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UNDER STRICT EMBARGO ACROSS ALL MEDIA UNTIL
17:30 SUNDAY 29 JUNE 2008

AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED AT 62nd EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Edinburgh, Scotland, 29 June... The Edinburgh International Film Festival today announced the winners in the ten competition categories for both feature and short films. The awards were presented to the winners by EIFF Patron Sir Sean Connery on the closing day of the Festival at a public ceremony in Filmhouse.

Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film, sponsored by the UK Film Council

SOMERS TOWN – Directed by Shane Meadows

This year’s Michael Powell Jury were actor Danny Huston (THE KREUTZER SONATA, THE CONSTANT GARDENER) who presided over the five-strong Jury, international producer Sigurjon Sighvatsson (ZIDANE: A 21st CENTURY PORTRAIT); Orange Prize nominated author Scarlett Thomas (The End of Mr. Y); Golden Globe Best Actress nominee Joely Richardson (NIP\TUCK) and acclaimed director Iain Softley (INKHEART; K-PAX).

The Jury citation read: “It is a great pleasure to recognise SOMERS TOWN as the freshest, most imaginative, maverick work deserving of the Michael Powell Award. After viewing an impressive selection of films and a long deliberation we the Jury unanimously agreed that the award would go to SOMERS TOWN.”

This year the Michael Powell Award was significantly increased from £5000 to £20,000.

[roger1]

That's fantastic news - well done all involved!!

[salvador]

Whoop Whoop! As I thought! Congratulations Shane, Tomo and all involved, absolutely brilliant! and deserved

[Bill Edwards]

HA HA! Fantastic!! I knew it! ;D ;D

Congratulations to everyone!! ;D

[cudas]

a bit of background about the award and Michael Powell...

winners
1993 Derek Jarman - Blue
1994 Antonia Bird - Priest
1995 Gillies MacKinnon - Small Faces
1996 Michael Winterbottom - Jude
1997 Carine Adler - Under the Skin
1998 John Maybury - Love is the Devil
1999 Tim Roth - The War Zone
2000 Pawel Pawlikowski - Last Resort (GREAT FILM, btw)
2001 Kenny Glenaan - Gas Attack
2002 Dominic Savage - Out of Control
2003 David MacKenzie - Young Adam
2004 Pawel Pawlikowski - My Summer of Love (beat DMS... )
2005 Gavin Hood - Tsotsi
2006 K Fulton & L Pepe - Brothers of the Head
2007 Anton Corbijn - Control (ALSO GREAT)
2008 Shane Meadows - Somers Town (!)

"Named in homage to one of Britain's most original filmmakers and inaugurated in 1993, the Michael Powell Award is sponsored by the UK Film Council. Rewarding imagination and creativity in British filmmaking, the award is judged by an international jury and carries a substantial cash prize."
-- Edinburgh catalogue

Michael Powell made some of the greatest works of British cinema, often in collaboration with Emeric Pressburger. For me their masterpiece is 'A Canterbury Tale' (1944)

www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/content/view/678/1/

but 'Black Narcissus' and 'The Red Shoes' are also pretty special. Solo, Powell was responsible for the wildly controversial 'Peeping Tom' (1959).

The prize named after him is a big deal internationally and is well known and respected in the film world. This is terrific news for 'Somers Town' and all those connected with it - and to think back in Berlin in February it looked like the movie might go straight to TV and DVD!

In Edinburgh the "smart" money was on Duane Hopkins 'Better Things' or Kenny Glenaan's 'Summer', with 'Somers Town' more of a "dark horse" candidate. The star of 'Summer', Robert Carlyle, won the Best Performance prize awarded by the Powell jury -- he's good in the movie, but really they should have given it to T.Turgoose and P.Jagiello (last year 'Control' won the Powell award and star Sam Riley rightly picked up the performance gong.)

[Bill Edwards]

Black Narcissus is one of my all time favourite films. Hallucinatory.

[salvador]

Here's some details from the EIFF website

www.edfilmfest.org.uk/news/view/2154/and-the-winner-is-/

[Dave]

Excellent stuff!

Sean Connery looks a bit lost and confused in that pic on the EIFF website.

I'll pop this on the front page for tomorrow. Thanks Neil.

Just noticed the mention of £20,000.... is that prize money? ... and more importantly, is that enough to fund another 5 day feature like Le Donk?!

[shindig]

More ivory back scratchers for Mr. Meadows.

[GR]

Jun 29, 2008 16:58:34 GMT cudas said:

a bit of background about the award and Michael Powell...

winners
2000 Pawel Pawlikowski - Last Resort (GREAT FILM, btw)
2004 Pawel Pawlikowski - My Summer of Love (beat DMS... )
2007 Anton Corbijn - Control (ALSO GREAT)
2008 Shane Meadows - Somers Town (!)

Aww.

Congratulations to Shane and everyone else involved with Somers Town -- nicely done!

(As for Powell's films, I've only seen The Red Shoes, but it was brilliant.)

[salvador]

Here's another article from the BBC website news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7480358.stm

Some photos from the awards ceremony

www.edfilmfest.org.uk/news/view/2155/eiff-awards-ceremony-29th-june-2008/496/?from=all/1

and some photos from the awards reception

www.edfilmfest.org.uk/news/view/2158/awards-ceremony-reception-29th-june-2008/?from=all/1

[HMV Lee]

Congratulations to Shane, Tomo and all involved with Somers Town im really really looking forward to seeing it.

[RydCook]

Wow!

Excellent! Fully deserves it as well! A massively huge WELL DONE to everyone involved in Somers Town. It's a fantastic film.

[bickle]

Congratulations! I still haven't seen the film yet but I'm sure it's well deserved!

[johartley]

Congratulations to all involved. That bad boy was overdue!!

Cant wait to see the film.

jo