Cinemania 2015 Awards

CINEMANIA

November  5 - 15, 2015

CINEMANIA’s 21st edition of French films with English subtitles  ended on Sunday evening, November 15, 2015.

This year’s annual Montreal's film festival enjoyed a record 27% increase in attendance. It greatly surpassed all the expectations.

GRAND PRIX MEL HOPPENHEIM

The main CINEMANIA prize that has been awarded since 1998:

THE SENSE OF WONDER - LE GOUT DES MERVEILLES

Eric Besnard’s LE GOUT DES MERVEILLES carried off the Grand Prix Mel Hoppenheim. This very moving film follows the life of a young widow, Louise, coping as a single mother raising two children on a pear-farm in France’s Drome region. One evening on her way back from market she collides with a young man on a country road – he suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, a somewhat milder form of autism. His intelligence and his innate sense of curiosity about the wonders of the world forever change Louise’s life and that of her children. It’s a wonderful film, a very different romantic comedy featuring incredible chemistry between the two leads, Virginie Efira and Benjamin Lavernhe.

TFO Prix du Public for Best First Feature Film

JOURNEY THROUGH CHINA - VOYAGE EN CHINE

  

There were seven films eligible to compete for the TFO Prix du Public, and Zoltan Mayer’s VOYAGE EN CHINE was chosen by CINEMANIA’s audience as the favourite. The film, starring the talented Belgian actress Yolande Moreau, enjoyed it’s North American premiere at the Festival. Moreau movingly portrays a mother who travels to China to recuperate her son’s body, the result of a fatal motorcycle accident. She’s suddenly plunged into a foreign culture that’s completely strange to her and she gradually realizes that her sad voyage is becoming a journey of self-discovery, a reinvigoration of her own life despite her grieving.

A MOST SUCCESSFUL 21st EDITION!

Selecting the best films from such prestigious festivals as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Angouleme and Toronto, CINEMANIA 2015 programmed 44 films of which 40 were premieres, in addition to 3 retrospective films and 3 documentaries.

CINEMANIA’s stage at the Imperial Cinema was graced this year by guest of honour, actress Francoise Fabian; producer and actress, Julie Gayet; director Phillipe Le Guay; actors Antonythasan Jesuthasan, Ariane Ascaride, and Syrus Shahidi; filmmakers Guillaume and Stephane Malandrin; director and actor Mathieu Busson; and producers Dominique Besnehard and Tarek Lakhdar-Hamina.  All presented their films and gave generously of their time in engaging with CINEMANIA’s audiences.

The 22nd edition of CINEMANIA will take place from Thursday, November 3rd to November 13th, 2016.

For more information about the festival, viisit the CINEMANIA website.