By Scott Huver, Hollywood.com Staff
With a full roster of intriguing films, a refreshing absence of the too-routine festival “swag” invasion and the presence of one bona fide superstar (namely Michael Douglas, who has a home in Bermuda with his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones and their children), the 9th Annual Bermuda International Film Festival continues to emerge as an intimate and increasingly significant launch pad for an array of movies audiences are sure to be talking about in the months to come, all set against a charming and incredibly hospitable island backdrop. Among the standouts were the Australian entry The Proposition–director John Hillcoat’s harrowing tale of a trio of outlaw brothers in the 1880s Outback in which the middle brother must track and kill his psychotic elder sibling in order to save the youngest from the gallows–which won the Mary-Jean Mitchell Green Award for Best Narrative Feature. Hillcoat took home a $5,000 cash prize. “We were impressed with the provocative portrait of The Proposition, of whether the human race can overcome its base need for violence,” said jury chair Peter Riegert, the veteran character actor seen in Local Hero and Traffic and perhaps best known for his iconic role as Boone in the comedy classic Animal House. “All the elements–cinematography, writing, acting and direction–made this a compelling and horrific look at that question.” Riegert’s fellow juror, actress Laura Harring (Mulholland Drive, TV’s The Shield) said the film’s “stillness and pacing made me feel that I was transported to the past,” while her the third jurist, Daily Variety film critic Robert Koehler said “the film has an elegant narrative structure and that, combined with its visceral quality, made it a complete experience. It is a classical western.” The festival’s Audience Choice Award went to the closing night film, the immensely crowd-pleasing British film Kinky Boots, first-time director Julian Jarrold’s uplifting comedy about the reluctant heir (Joel Edgerton) to a floundering Northampton shoe factory who sets out to save the family business by specializing in an unusual niche market: thigh-high stiletto heels designed especially for drag queens, thanks to the help of the flamboyant cross-dressing cabaret performer Lola, played with gusto by the astonishing Chiwetel Ejiofor. Read More....
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