Seville European Film Festival 2020: Romanian director Cristi Puiu's latest film wins top prize

Malmkrog, the latest film of Romanian filmmaker Cristi Puiu, was awarded the Golden Giraldillo for best film at this year's edition of the Seville European Film Festival.

The award was given by an international jury made up of producer Rosa Bosch, producer and actor Frédéric Niedermayer, D'A Film Festival Barcelona director Carlos R. Ríos and producer Luis Urbano.

"You don't usually get the chance to feel like you're dealing with a masterpiece. We were impressed by the potential of the film of a great director. A film that takes place in 19th century Russia, and yet never stops talking about us. In times of pandemic, the fog in which the film ends resonates in a particularly lasting way among us," the jury's motivation reads.

The film also won the Best Screenplay Award. Last year, Corneliu Porumboiu’s The Whistlers won the same distinction at the Seville festival.

The full list of winners is available here.

This March, Puiu won the Best Director award in the Encounters section of the 2020 Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale) for the same film.

The film is a co-production of Romania, Serbia, Switzerland, Sweden, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia. The cast includes Frédéric Schulz-Richard, Agathe Bosch, Diana Sakalauskaité, Marina Palii, Ugo Broussot, and István Téglás.

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(Photo: Malmkrog by Cristi Puiu Facebook Page)