"Atmen" ("Breathing") the debut film from Austrian director Karl Markovic, has been named the best European film in the Directors' Fortnight competition, while Bouli Lanners' "The Giants" won two awards in the section, which runs simultaneously with but independently of the Cannes Film Festival.
"Atmen" (left) deals with a young man, newly released from prison, who works in the morgue in Vienna and is searching for his mother. It was awarded the Europa Cinemas Label, and will receive special promotion from the Europa Cinemas chain of theaters throughout Europe.
A jury statement called the film "a dark but positive story that is full of life, sparked by excellent performances."
"The Giants," meanwhile, won the Society of Auteurs and Dramatic Composers' SACD Prize as the section's best French-language film, and also the Art Cinema Award from the arthouse cinema group CICAE.
The film follows a pair of young men who spend a summer alone at their grandfather's house; it was the final film to screen in its section, and was named as winner before its first public screening.
This year's Directors' Fortnight section included 21 films, of which about two-thirds were European.
