Hungarian film takes top honours

ON BODY AND SOUL: ‘AUDACIOUS AND COURAGEOUS’

Movie about abattoir co-workers who share dreams wins festival prize.

Hungarian drama On Body and Soul has been awarded the Sydney Film Prize with $45 000 (R576 100), one of the top cash awards offered by a film festival in the world.

The film is directed by Ildiko Enyedi and won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year.

At the closing ceremony of the 64th Sydney Film Festival, the winning film was described as “audacious, cutting-edge and courageous”.

The film is about an unconventional romance between two co-workers who discover they have exactly the same dreams each night.

“It’s a film that shows us that even in this divided world, we are capable of sharing the same dreams, that amongst the ugliness of a slaughterhouse, kindness, gentleness can be found,” Margaret Pomeranz, the jury president, said at the ceremony.

Enyedi’s movie was among 12 films on the official competition that included Berlinale Silver Bear winners The Other Side of Hope by Aki Kaurismaki and Felicite by Alain Gomis; Oscar-nominated James Baldwin documentary I am

not your Negro, by Raoul Peck, and Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled.

In accepting the award, Enyedi said: “It’s such an amazingly strong competition. It’s marvellous that such a film can move so many people. It gives me so much hope in cinema and in human communication.”

Organisers said more than 185 000 people had attended the 12-day festival, which showcased 295 movies from 60 countries.

Festival director Nashen Moodley said filmmakers across the globe are looking for ways to interpret momentous events and challenges facing humanity. The films at the festival provided “a wealth of stories from diverse viewpoints and a moment in time to take stock of who, what and where we are today”, he said.