Source： Taiwan Today
By Grace Kuo

The Canadian movie “Familiar Grounds” has won the Grand Prize of the 2011 Taipei Film Festival’s International New Talent Competition, event organizers said July 1.

Directed by Stephane Lafleur, the film “is a splendid dark comedy, with themes and visuals that are equally inventive,” jurors said.

“Familiar Grounds” conveys the notion that “you can outwit fate if you find a way to work out your domestic and familial problems,” they added.

“I am really honored,” Lafleur said upon learning the news. “I hope there will be Taiwanese studios willing to circulate the film for those who haven’t seen it.”

According to event organizers, the movie is one of five that stood out from the 180 submissions the festival received from around the world.

Prize money of NT$600,000 (US$20,690) will be presented to Lafleur.

Another award, the Special Jury Prize, was given to “Live!” by Russian director Yury Bykov, who will be presented with a cash award of NT$300,000. The film is “an existential fable about life and death which is fully grounded in real people and places; it shows characters confronted with real and immediate moral choices,” the jurors said.

The Special Mentions went to two other international submissions, the Spanish film “Father,” directed by Jose Maria de Orbe, and the Romanian movie “Outbound,” directed by Bogdan George Apetri.

The Taiwanese film “You Are the Apple of My Eye,” directed by renowned local author Giddens, received the Audience’s Choice Award.

“Winning such an award is really difficult,” Giddens said, adding that the movie is his first feature film. He pointed out that his dream has always been to shoot “You Are the Apple of My Eye” based on his own experience of pursuing girls during high school.

Officials said the jurors for this year’s festival were Chung Mong-hong, Tony Rayns, Xie Fei, Yeh Jufeng and Zeze Takahisa.

The 13th Taipei Film Festival, running from June 24 to July 16, screens around 200 films from over 30 countries.