Lanthimos’ Dogtooth takes Un Certain Regard Prize

The five member jury lead by Paolo Sorrentino have awarded the top prize of the Un Certain Regard category to a disturbing, in a category of its own, family portrait known as Dogtooth. One of the rare occasions where a film hailing from Greece is not only admitted, but walks off with a top prize.

The drama features a mentally disturbed set of parents who’ve basically grounded their children permanently – the children are actually full grown adults but have no knowledge of the outside world. On the onset, you get a sense that they are close to mental retardation, but in fact, the three are part of a reward and punishment system – they receive new objects or toys as compensation for good behavior. Sprinkled with gratuitous violence, and a frame that almost never moves, this reminds me of some auteurs from Mexico.

The jury gave the second best prize to one of my favorite films of the festival. Corneliu Porumboiu who claimed the Camera d’or a couple of years back for 12:08 East of Buchrest, received the Jury Prize for Police, Adjectiv. Closing out the winners list was a special awarded given to a pair of films: Iranian helmer Bahman Ghobadi‘s No One Knows About Persian Cats and Mia Hansen-Love‘s Father of My Children. Look for my reviews of all films excluding Ghobadi’s film in the weeks to come.

PRIZE OF UN CERTAIN REGARD
KYNODONTAS (Dogtooth) by Yorgos LANTHIMOS

JURY PRIZE
POLITIST, ADJECTIV (Police, Adjective) by Corneliu PORUMBOIU.

SPECIAL PRIZE UN CERTAIN REGARD 2009
(No One Knows About Persian Cats) by Bahman GHOBADI
LE PÈRE DE MES ENFANTS (Father of my children) by Mia HANSEN-LØVE