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Venice’s professional amateurs.
By Franklin L. Bitz |
VENICE, Italy -- There's an award given out each year at the Venice Film Festival that doesn't get much attention. But it's had an uncanny history of predicting the winner of the event's famous Golden Lion award.
It's called the Leoncino d'Oro -- the name is Italian for "Golden Lion cub" -- and it is selected by 26 local Venice-area youths. In 18 years that the Leoncino has been awarded it has pre-selected the winner of the Golden Lion award six times. That's one in three times that it's selected the winner from among more than 20 candidates.
This year, alas, the youngsters selected Russian director Ivan Vyrypaev's first film, "Ejforija" (Euphoria), which did not win any other awards at the festival. But it's not a disappointment that the film failed to follow its Leoncino with a full Lion -- the young jury selects the film they like best, not the one they believe will win the main prize.
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And the 74-minute effort is a very good one. In the film, the main character Vera (played by Polina Agureyeva, Vyrypaev's wife), runs off with her lover and is pursued by her vodka-guzzling husband. The film is set in the Don River valley in southern Russia. It features beautiful landscapes and compelling performances.
For his part, Vyrypaev says he has no intention of giving up his passion for writing for the stage just because he's had a few successes on the silver screen. And, similarly, the Leoncino's bright-eyed jury has no plans to abandon its studies for a life on the festival circuit.
For a group of people -- director and jury members -- working part time on something they're passionate about, they're all doing a pretty memorable job.
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