Page 30 - Fujifilm Exposure_27 Bride & Prejudice_ok

MOTION PICTURE & PRO-VIDEO awards & prizes
“AND THE AWARD GOES TO...”
The award-winning Fujifilm link between the final instalment in Tolkien’s epic saga, a low-budget feature debut and a nail-biting political thriller for TV
W hat’s the connection between the late great writer and/or produc-
er of films classics like Champion, The Men, High Noon, Bridge On The River Kwai and The Guns Of
Navarone and first-time British feature director, Emily Young?
With Kiss Of Life, which she also scripted, Young, 33, was winner of the Carl Foreman Award at this year’s Orange British Academy Film Awards.
Named in honour of the American film- maker, who made his home in Britain after going into exile during the McCarthy witch-hunts, the award cites “Special Achievement by a British Director/Producer or Writer in their first feature film.” As well as the famous BAFTA mask, the winner also receives a cheque for £10,000.
Commenting on Young – who edged out director Peter Webber (Girl With A Pearl Earring) and writer Sergio Casci (American Cousins), whose films, like Kiss Of Life, were filmed or partially filmed on Fujifilm, not to mention writer Jenny Mayhew (To Kill A King), Foreman’s daughter, Eve Williams- Jones commented:
“All four of our nominees this year were potential winners. Emily Young repre- sents the exciting new generation of young British filmmakers who not only have an essential grasp of the art but, equally importantly, understand that film must also entertain.”
Though clearly thrilled to win the award, Young had to admit that she’d never actually heard of Foreman when she was
first nominated alongside the other trio whose films she hadn’t seen either.
Daughter of the late political journalist Hugo Young, she had been single-mindedly pursuing her feature dream, ever since first thinking up the idea even before heading off to Poland’s National Film School more than a decade ago.
At Lodz she first collaborated with cin- ematographer Wojciech Szepel on a pair of student shorts and they would stay teamed when Young began to work in earnest from 1999 on her feature debut.
Shot in South London, Bosnia and Croatia, the £1.8 million Kiss Of Life, origi- nally titled Helen Of Peckham, severely tested Young and her crew especially when their original leading lady, Katrin Cartlidge, tragically died just a fortnight before shooting was due to begin.
With her late replacement, Lithuanian actress Ingeborga Dapkunaite alongside a cast including Peter Mullan and David Warner, the completed film was selected for last year’s Un Certain Regard section at Cannes.
A UK theatrical release and the BAFTA award has completed a memorable debut for Young who is now working on a second film, her own adaptation of Andrea Ashworth’s acclaimed childhood memoir, Once In A House On Fire.
Young’s award was presented by British actor Andy Serkis who, dark-suited, curly- haired, was quite unrecognisable from his incredible computer-generated screen make-over as wheezing, sleazy Gollum from the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
The final part, The Return Of The King, carried all before it both in terms of box- office and awards acclaim.
After scooping a quartet at, first, the Golden Globes then the BAFTAs, plus the Orange Film of The Year for the third year running, the 201-minute epic then went onward and upward to equal Ben-Hur and Titanic with an amazing Oscar haul of 11.
By the end of the Academy Awards ceremony on Hollywood Boulevard, pre- senter Billy Crystal had virtually run out of wise-cracks about ex-patriate Kiwis on duty in LA. Director Peter Jackson, who scooped no fewer than three Oscars him- self as writer/director/producer, reminded the audience that some 25,000 personnel had been involved with the complex, time- consuming production in his native land.
Written by Paul Abbott and directed by David Yates, State Of Play, a deft six- part political thriller for the BBC, has already proved itself to be a small- screen blockbuster.
With a sequel reputedly in the offing, State Of Play, co-starring Bill Nighy, David Morrissey, John Simm, Kelly McDonald, Marc Warren and James McAvoy, was named Best Drama Serial by both The Royal Television Society and the Directors Guild of Great Britain, in its inaugural prize-giving.
State Of Play was also nominated for Drama Serial and Photography in the BAFTA TV and Craft Awards, whose winners will be announced after this issue of EXPOSURE goes to press. Another Fujifilm-originated contender, The Lost Prince, received five BAFTA TV Craft nominations, including Photography.
From Los Angeles to London, Huelva to Hong Kong, it’s certainly been quite a year for Fuji on film. ■ QUENTIN FALK
28 • Exposure • Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video