Cape Town World Cinema Festival Jury announces winning films

The Jury motivated, "This story about 16th century actors in the Korean Court completely transported us as it brought old theatre forms alive. The Shakespearian dynamic, the unpredictable narrative and the emotional journey of the characters all work together to create a richly textured film. Joon Ik Lee, the director, is an original voice and he has emerged at an exciting time in Korean cinema."

An elated Jun Ik Lee responded, "I had the good fortune to be part of the jury for the 4th Asiana International Shorts Competition, which took place in Seoul in early November. We awarded the Grand Prize to Lucky, a short film about South Africa, directed by Avie Luthra. So it is all the more special to get the news that King and the Clown has been named the Best Feature Film at the Cape Town World Cinema Festival. I am grateful for this news from a halfway around the world. I am very happy to hear that the African audience at the festival has embraced a film which takes place in Korea over 500 years ago."

King and the Clown also won the award for the Best Screenplay for writers Seok-Hwan Choi and Tae-woong Kim.

The Best Director award went to Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom for The Road to Guantanamo. The directors weave reconstruction, reportage and archive footage to tell the true story of three British men who were captured in Afghanistan and detained by the US in Guantanamo Bay for more than two years before being released without charges.

"We are also pleased to announce that the Best Actor award went jointly to South African, Kagiso Lediga, of Bunny Chow, and Isaka Sawadogo of Sounds of Sand."

Yailene Sierra scooped the Best Actress award for her role in the outstanding Cuban film, Habana Blues.

Other winners at the Cape Town World Cinema Festival are:

John Barker, director of Bunny Chow, who won the Lionel Ngakane Award for Most Promising Filmmaker

Sekalli sa Meokgo, directed by Teboho Mahlatsi, for Best South African Short Film

The T-Shirt/Tricko, directed by Hossein Martin Fazeli, for Best International Short Film

The Jameson People's Choice Award will be announced shortly.

The international jury was composed of Charles Mensah from Gabon (Jury President), Egyptian Jihan El-Tahri, Cameroonian Eriq Ebouaney, and South Africans David Kramer and Mary Watson.

According to Auret, this year's film selection has been exceptional. "We are proud to be able to offer our audience an array of short films, documentaries and feature films that would not ordinarily be available in South Africa. We want to expose film audiences to the very best of world cinema. Judging by the reactions of audiences at the festival, they have also been very receptive to the diversity of offerings.

"Best of all however, is the quality of South African talent on show. Our industry looks like it's starting to really reflect the local experience. This needs to be encouraged at every possible level and we are very proud to be able to offer our local talent a platform to exhibit their films."

2006 is the first year that the Sithengi Film and Television Market introduced the African Co-production Forum (ACF) initiative in association with the Hubert Bals Fund (Netherlands) and Göteborg Film Fund. The aim of this initiative is to source exceptional feature film projects from three territories in Africa - west Africa, east Africa and southern Africa - to pitch at the Feature Film Co-production Forum (FFCF) at Sithengi, and then at the Co-production Market, Cinemart, at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in the Netherlands in 2007.

This initiative resulted in two travel grant prizes to attend the Co-production Market, Cinemart, at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2007. The prizes, sponsored by the Hubert Bals Fund and the Göteborg Film Fund, were awarded to writer/producer Jide Bello for his project My Brother's Sin and director Musekiwa Samuriwo for Cup of Glory.

Bengt Toll, Chairman, Göteborg International Film Festival Fund and Chairman, Film I Vast, and Sandra den Hamer, Director, International Film Festival, Rotterdam, said, "Hubert Bals Fund from the Rotterdam Film Festival and the Göteborg International Film Festival Fund have been co-operating with Sithengi for quite some time now we are very pleased to see that the present way to work seems to be the right one. Workshops in southern Africa supported by our festival funds and managed by Sithengi has attracted a lot of young talent and six of the best projects have been invited to Sithengi and the co-production forum and out of them we have chosen two projects that get the travel grant to Europe, to our two festivals, to try out the projects there.

"We believe this is a model that works and both our festivals wants to continue this process together with Sithengi in the years to come."