The Un Certain Regard prize for best screenplay was awarded to Moroccan filmmaker Meryem Ben Mbarek for her social drama film Sofia.
Sofia is about a teenage girl who becomes pregnant and gives birth, yet hides the identity of the father from her family. The film deconstructs the traditional and classiest concepts of marriage and sex in the modern Moroccan society.
Un Certain Regard 2018 presented 18 films in competition. Six of them were first films. The opening film was “Donbass” by Sergei Loznitsa.
Under the presidency of Benicio Del Toro (Puerto Rican-American actor), the jury was comprised of Annemarie Jacir (Palestinian director and writer), Kantemir Balagov (Russian director), Virginie Ledoyen (French actress), and Julie Huntsinger (American executive director, Telluride Film Festival).
In their report, the jury said, “we feel that out of 2,000 films considered by the festival, the 18 we saw in Un Certain Regard—from Argentina to China—were all in their own way winners. Over the past 10 days, we were extremely impressed by the high quality of the work presented, but in the end we were the most moved by five films.”
The main Un Certain Regard went to Ali Abbasi’s film Border, while the prize for best performance went to Victor Polster for the film Girl by Lukas Dhont.
The prize for best director went to Sergei Loznista for his film Donbass. The jury gave a special gift to the film The Dead and The Others by João Salaviza and Renée Nader Messora.
