‘Bull’ takes top awards at Deauville fest
‘GoT’, ‘Avengers’ win big at Saturn
LOS ANGELES, Sept 15, (RTRS): Annie Silverstein’s feature debut “Bull” swept three awards at the 45th Deauville American Film Festival, including the Grand Prize, the Revelation Prize for best first film and the Critics’ Prize.
“Bull”, a portrait of a rebellious teenage girl from South Texas, world premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and marks Silverstein’s follow up to her short “Skunk” which won Cannes’ Cinefondation prize in 2014. “Bull” is represented in international markets by Film Constellation, while 30WES, which financed the movie, reps North American rights. “Bull” follows the relationship between a troubled adolescent from West of Houston whose mother is in jail and an ageing African American bullfighter.
The Jury prize, meanwhile, was shared between Michael Angelo Covino’s “The Climb”, and Robert Eggers “The Lighthouse”, a hallucinatory thriller starring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe as two lighthouse keepers on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s. A24, which co-financed “The Lighthouse” with New Regency, will distribute the film in North America, while Focus Features has international rights.
“The Climb”, another feature debut, is a buddy comedy centers on two best friends who share a close bond – until one sleeps with the other’s fiancee. The movie follows their tumultuous, but enduring friendship. Like “Bull”, “The Climb” world premiered at Un Certain Regard where it won the Heart Prize (alongside “A Brother’s Love”). Sony Pictures Classics has worldwide rights to the film, excluding France and German-speaking Europe. Metropolitan FilmExport will handle the French release.
This year’s Deauville jury was presided by French actress Catherine Deneuve and included Claire Burger, Valeria Golino, Vicky Krieps, Antonin Baudry, Jean-Pierre Duret, Gael Morel, Orelsan, Nicolas Saada and Gaspard Ulliel.
Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ “Swallow”, a bold thriller about a pregnant housewife who develops an emotional disorder leading her to ingest dangerous objects, received the Special Prize. Upon receiving the award, MirabellaDavis said “Swallow” was a feminist film and an homage to his grandmother who was institutionalized by her husband into a mental hospital and lobotomized. IFC Films has US rights to “Swallow”.
The Audience Prize was awarded to Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz’s “The Peanut Butter Falcon” which stars Shia LaBeouf. The film, which previously won the Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival, follows an outlaw fisherman who takes a young man with Down syndrome under his wing.
Also: LOS ANGELES: As Jamie Lee Curtis picked up her first trophy ever at the 45th Annual Saturn Awards Friday night, she had a good luck charm on her arm: former manager
Chuck Binder, whom she said was the reason she became an actor.
“I was in college and had no thought of being an actor,” Curtis told Variety ahead of her best actress win for “Halloween”. “I came home from college at Christmas, and an old friend of mine who used to be a tennis teacher was managing actors.