It’s a shame that the Academy awards still have trouble with the voting process for their foreign film category. While we were all blasting them for not including Gomorrah, I would have cried foul for the exclusion of Sergey Dvortsevoy‘s Tulpan. Zeigeist Films (who just picked up another brilliant film in Three Monkeys off New Yorker Films) distributes this picture, which is the type of film narrative spun out of its natural surrounds. I call this gem a miracle of a film.
One of my biggest complaints I have about the IMDB is that they don’t keep track of how well a film performs on the film festival circuit. Look up Tulpan in the database and you’ll see a few mentions (Winner of the Un Certain Regard prize) but in fact, the picture has probably won more festival awards than any other film that was presented at last year’s Cannes. The film will be making its theatrical debut at the Film Forum at the beginning of April for two weeks (look for it to be held over), and they have provided us with a first look at the poster, which for its domestic release is stamped with festival laurels and press kudos.
