The 9th Gopo Awards
At the 9th Gopo Gala, “Closer to the Moon, directed by Nae Caranfil, won 9 awards.
Corina Sabău, 11.04.2015, 13:38
At the 9th Gopo Awards Gala, hosted by the National Theatre in Bucharest, the film “Closer to the Moon”, directed by Nae Caranfil, won 9 awards, among which the coveted best film, best director and best screenplay trophies. The film also won the awards for best editing, best makeup and hairstyle, as well as the awards for sound, photography, music and costumes. A special award was granted to the animation director Ion Truica, introduced by Mihai Mitrica, the artistic director of the Anim’est International Animation Festival.
Mihai Mitrica: “He is one of the very few masters of Romanian animation, as valuable, though different in style, as Ion Popescu Gopo, whose name was given to this Awards Gala. He is a film director, graphic artist, set designer, screenwriter, broadcast journalist. He worked with the Animafilm cinema studio, where he made more than 50 animation films. He won awards in Venice, Berlin, Tehran, he also went to Cannes in 1976, with a short reel called ‘Hidalgo’. In 2008, this festival granted him the excellence award for lifetime achievement. I found a characterisation made by film critic Mrs. Ecaterina Oproiu, which suits him perfectly, I quote: ‘Ion Truica has brought into animation the authority of a very personal and pervasive graphic art, a line of Gothic sharpness, a hermit’s sober composition. Truica is a moonwalker, an ethereal artist, a master of elegiac meditation.”
Ion Truica’s most recent film, “The Obelisc”, made in 2014 on a script by Laurentiu Damian and inspired by the poem of the same title by Geo Bogza, was first screened at the Anim’est International Film Festival.
Ion Truica: “Thank you for coming here to honour Romanian films, all the more so as these films have sometimes been made in very difficult conditions, but with lots of love, by very talented people. It is good that tonight we’ve opened the doors of true animation. This is a path that we must follow, because animation, when well-done, makes both children and adults happy.”
Some of the highlights of the Gopo Awards Gala involved the winners of the awards for lifetime professional achievements, actresses Eugenia Bosinceanu and Coca Bloos. Actress Dorina Lazar, the one who handed in the award to Coca Bloos, recalled with humour how she had first met Coca Bloos, with whom she had played many times on the same stage.
Dorina Lazar: “Coca Bloos is one of a family of special actors, because their parts can be played by other actors, but never like they do. That is why you must see “The Lady Bosses”, directed by Sorin Militaru. I congratulate Coca Bloos for this award and I’m convinced it’s just the beginning.”
Coca Bloos has an impressive artistic record in terms of films. Among other things, Coca Bloos boasts three roles each in productions by Andrei Blaier (Love Divorce, Stone Cross, Terente – King of the Marsh), Mircea Daneliuc (The Conjugal Bed, Fed Up, Ambassadors, Seek Country)) and Lucian Pintilie (Last Stop Paradise, The Afternoon of a Torturer, Niki and Flo) also featuring in the debut productions of such filmmakers as Nae Caranfil (E pericoloso sporgersi, 1993), Cristian Mungiu (Occident, 2002), Titus Munteanu (Exam, 2004), Corneliu Porumboiu ( 12:08 East of Bucharest, 2006) and Gabriel Achim ( Adalbert’ s Dream, 2011). In 2014, Coca Bloos also featured in Razvan Savescu’s “America, Here We Come”, which received a nomination in the Best Debut Film category at this year’s edition of the Gopo Awards.
Coca Bloos: ”I am a happy and rich person. I thank God for that. Happy, because I’ve done what I’ve liked and what I’ve loved best in life. Not only did I want to know, but I also wanted to do my best and be faithful to what I was assigned to do. I am rich, because in my love for people I’ve also come across people who believed in me and who acted as role models for me, through their efforts. All those encounters are my fortune and I assure you, it is not small at all. I had my first encounter with film, which is at once fascinating, magical, mysterious, unforgiving and cynical, when I was about four. I will never forget such films as “The Fall of Berlin”, “Volga-Volga”, “Jolly Fellows”, “And Quiet Flows the Don”. I’ve loved film, I’ve cherished and worshipped it as something unattainable, being fascinated by its fascination. I’ve never refused it anything, I’ve never asked anything from it, but for what I got, I owe it so much. And for what I am, I thank each and everybody, and my gratitude goes to them all: the camera, as it did not get scared of me, the cameramen, for not being afraid I might spoil their shot, film directors, for needing me, classes of students with whom I’ve often shared their emotion when taking their graduation exams, my family and my patient partner, my audience, thirsting for reverie, and last but not least, my gratitude also goes to those who made possible my encounter with you tonight. “
Nae Caranfil’s “Closer to the Moon” was the great winner of the Gala, with an impressive record of nine Gopo Awards out of 12 nominations. Here is the director Nae Caranfil himself.
Nae Caranfil: ”More than ten years ago, I vacillated between two film ideas, I didn’t quite know which one I should choose and I spent an evening with a character to whom I told what I had in mind. The man had encouraged me a lot to make the film I made. Had it not been for him, the film “Closer to the Moon” might not have been made. I am so sorry that man did not get to see the film, and that is why I dedicate this award to him, to the late film critic Alex Leo Serban.“
The 2015 edition of the Gopo Awards Gala was jointly organized by the Association for the Promotion of the Romanian Film and the Film and Urban Culture Association, with the support of the National Centre of Cinematography, the Bucharest City Hall through Creart — Bucharest’s Creation, Art and Tradition Centre and Babel Communications.
