The Méliès d’Or and Méliès d’Argent Awards are presented each year to the best European fantastic feature length and short films.
The European Federation of Fantastic Film Festivals annually awards a Méliès d’Or prize for the best European fantastic feature film and short film.
An award which is renowned in Europe and abroad, the Méliès generates visibility for films, its producers and directors. It’s an award that stands for quality, creativity, and imagination.
These awards acknowledge quality and creativity, and generate a unique visibility for the movies and their directors. The winning films have screened at many of the European Federation of Fantastic Film Festivals’s festivals, including its supporting members outside Europe, which promotes their circulation all around the world.
The European Federation of Fantastic Film Festivals is a very close network of 24 film festivals from 18 countries, with a global audience of more than 800,000 visitors, which makes it a vital economic and cultural actor in the fantastic film scene.
The European Federation of Fantastic Film Festivals‘ mission is to promote European fantastic film productions in all of Europe and throughout the world, improving their visibility and their position among audiences within the industry, and encouraging their circulation.
The Federation works to fulfil this mission through their network of festivals in Europe, their supporting members in Asia, North America and South America, as well as their Méliès Awards to outstanding European genre films.
The Méliès d’Or Award ceremony took place on Thursday 11 October 2018 at 16:30 at the Meliá Sitges Auditori, before the screening of The Year of the Plague (by Carlos Martín Ferrera), as part of the Sitges – International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia.
The winners of the 2018 Méliès d’Or competition are:
“CLIMAX“, “CLANKER“AND FILM DIRECTOR ÁLEX DE LA IGLESIA ARE AWARD WINNERS THIS YEAR.
Sitges – International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia hosted the ceremony to present the Méliès d’or Awards.
“Climax” (France), the new film by Argentinean origin director Gaspar Noé, was selected in the feature film category, while “Clanker Man” (UK), by Ben Steiner, picked up the award for best short film.
“Climax” screened in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Art Cinema Award.
Joining these two prizes this year is the Méliès d’or Career category, which director Álex de la Iglesia received for his contribution to cinematographic fantastic genre.
The Melies d’Argent winners
The film “Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse” (Germany), directed by the austrian Lukas Feigelfeld, is the winner of the MOTELX (2018 Lisbon Fantastic Film Festival) Award – Best European Fantastic Film 2018/Méliès d’Argent.
“A Estranha Casa na Bruma” (“A Strange House in the Mist“) directed by portuguese Guilherme Daniel, won the MOTELX Award – Best European Fantastic Short Film 2018/Méliès d’Argent.
The Méliès Awards, named after Georges Méliès, the great French pioneer of fantastic films and special effects, were created in 1995.
The Méliès feature film cycle lasts about one year and is open to festivals with affiliated membership (one per country).
Each festival holds a competition for recently produced European genre films and its jury awards the winner a Méliès d’Argent.
The Argent winner from each festival then go on to compete for the Méliès d’Or; the competition and awards ceremony are currently held at the last festival on the cycle calendar.
The Méliès cycle for short films works in the same way, except that it is optional and open to both affiliated and adherent members. Currently nearly all of the festivals hold the short film competition.
The first Méliès d’Or ceremony was held by the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival in 1996 and the prize was given to Alex de la Iglesia for The Day of the Beast (El Día de la Bestia).
Other winners since that landmark date have included Michael Winterbottom for Code 46 in 2004, Thomas Alfredson for Let the Right One In (Låt den Rätte Komma In), in 2008, Rodrigo Cortes for Buried in 2011 and Kristina Buozyte for Vanishing Waves (Aurora) in 2012.
http://www.melies.org/mlis-competition/feature-film-mlis-dor-winners
http://www.melies.org/mlis-competition/feature-film-mlis-dargent-winners
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