AVALON and THE FIRST MAN won FIPRESCI prize in the 36th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)

This is the 20th year the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is hosting an international jury of journalist from FIPRESCI . Members of the FIPRESCI Jury in the 36th edition of this prestigious film festival included Diego Batlle (Argentina), Carmen Gray (United Kingdom), Freddie Wong Kwok-Shiu (Hong Kong), Sam Adams (United States), Pascal Grenier (Canada) and John Semley (Canada). The FIPRESCI Prize in the Discovery debut features section was awarded to Swedish director Axel Petersén for AVALON, in the words of the jury “an assured, darkly humorous portrait of an affluent class in hedonistic self-denial that marks the arrival of a promising new voice in Swedish filmmaking.” In the Special Presentations section, which includes more veteran directors, the FIPRESCI Prize was won by Italian director Gianni Amelio for THE FIRST MAN, a co-production with France and Algeria. In this adaptation of a classic novel by existential French writer Albert Camus, the director has explored the legacy of colonialism and its repercussions on both the master and the servant. The jury lauded the director’s sensibility that combines “the tenderness of a memoir and the unflinching gaze of a war reporter.”