‘Broken Circle Breakdown,’ ‘Finding Vivian Maier’ Among Palm Springs Film Fest Winners

The Palm Springs Film Festival announced its juried awards winners Saturday, with the audience award to be announced Sunday.The FIPRESCI critics’ prize went to Belgium’s “The Broken Circle Breakdown,” while the FIPRESCI actor prize went to Mads Mikkelsen from Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Hunt.”

Audience awards went to India’s “Lakshmi” for narrative feature and “Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia” for documentary feature.

Bérénice Bejo received the FIPRESCI actress award for “The Past.” The New Voices/New Visions Award went to “Medeas,” directed by Andrea Pallaoro. The Cine Latino award was split between “Heli” from Mexico and “Living is Easy With Eyes Closed” from Spain.

Polish director Andrzej Wajda, who was not able to travel to Palm Springs, sent a message thanking the festival for his Bridging the Borders award for “Walesa. Man of Hope.”

The New Voices/New Visions jury, which said it had a hard time choosing just one winner, also gave an award to “Left Foot Right Foot.” Panavision gave $60,000 camera packages for both New Voices winners, stunning “Left Foot Right Foot” director Germinal Rouax who thought he was getting just a runner-up prize.

“Finding Vivian Maier” received the first-time doc helmer John Schlesinger award.

“It’s been a tremendous 25th anniversary year for the Festival, capped by record numbers of both filmgoers and filmmakers attending,” said Festival Director Darryl Macdonald. “But the real standout has been the overall excellence of the films in this year’s Festival lineup, proving that the phenomenally strong year we’ve witnessed in Hollywood filmmaking has been more than matched by the strong upswing in quality filmmaking worldwide.”

“The jurys’ selections cover a range of high art and populism,” said Artistic Director Helen du Toit. “It is especially interesting to see how many of their top choices echo the passion of the audiences’ top picks.”

The complete list of award winners are:

Audience awards:

“Lakshmi” for narrative feature

“Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia” for documentary feature.

FIPRESCI Prize for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium), directed by Felix van Groeningen

FIPRESCI Prize for the Best Actor of the Year in a Foreign Language Film

Mads Mikkelsen from The Hunt (Denmark), directed by Thomas Vinterberg

FIPRESCI Prize for Best Actress of the Year in a Foreign Language Film

Bérénice Bejo from The Past (Iran), directed by Asghar Farhadi

New Voices/New Visions Award

Medeas (USA), directed by Andrea Pallaoro – Winner