FilmFestival Cottbus: Best Film, Audience Award & Best Actor to Ivona Juka’s Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day
On Sunday, 9 November, the awards ceremony of the 35th Eastern European Film Festival took place in Cottbus. The jury chose Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day by director and screenwriter Ivona Juka (4Film) as Best Film, while the audience bestowed it with the equivalent Audience Award. In addition, Emir Hadžihafizbegović won the award for Outstanding Individual Performance. The minority Croatian co-production, the feature Our Father by Goran Stanković (PomPom Films), won a Special Prize for Best Director.
Impressed by the drama feature Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day, the international festival jury awarded it for its “courage to tell untold stories, initiate dialogue, take an honest look at old wounds, and boldly consider how to move forward”. Director and screenwriter Ivona Juka also received the accompanying cash prize in the amount of 15,000 euros.
Emir Hadžihafizbegović, who stars in the lead role, won the award for Outstanding Individual Performance. The jury praised his performance as “brave in its suspense, powerful in its restraint, and memorable in its authenticity”.
The Audience Award also went to the feature Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day.
In addition, director Goran Stanković won a Special Prize for Best Director for his title Our Father, a co-production with Marina Andree Škop’s Croatian company PomPom Films.
Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day follows four friends – war veterans and artists – who become targets of the regime because of their sexual orientation. When party loyalist Emir is tasked with exposing them in order to upend their lives, he embarks on an internal struggle that confronts him with his own identity and moral boundaries.
Last year, the film was selected as Croatia’s contender for the 97th Academy Awards in the category of Best International Feature Film.
The film had its European premiere at the prestigious Warsaw Film Festival, and in addition to the awards in Cottbus, it recently won the main prize at the Cambridge Film Festival, currently counting a total of ten awards and recognitions.
“Each of these awards is confirmation that a powerful and authentic story can transcend the boundaries of language and context. FilmFestival Cottbus and Cambridge Film Festival are important because they bring together an audience that understands and respects complex, courageous films – and these are precisely the viewers for whom ‘Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day’ was created”, said producer Anita Juka after the awards ceremony.
The film Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day was produced by Anita Juka in front of 4Film, co-produced by companies from Canada, Poland, Cyprus, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.