Rising Star Award in Cannes for young Serbian actor

With the Louis Roederer Foundation's Rising Star Award for Jovan Ginić, a promising young Serbian actor has won an award in the Semaine de la Critique at the Cannes Film Festival. He was awarded for the leading role in Vladimir Perišić's LOST COUNTRY (France, Serbia, Luxembourg, Croatia). Perišić won the awards for Best Film and Best Actor at the FFC in 2009 with ORDINARY PEOPLE.

The story of his latest film takes place during the mass protests against the autocratic regime of Slobodan Milošević. Ginić plays 15-year-old Stefan, who, as the son of the spokeswoman for Milošević's Socialists, is bullied at school and increasingly doubts his mother's honesty and the partisan pathos of his family history at home. LOST COUNTRY is based on Perišić's own experiences as the son of the Minister of Culture in the Milošević government.

Eastern Europe was represented in Cannes this year with only a few entries. Other prizes to films from the "FFC territory" went to Aki Kaurismäki's latest film FALLEN LEAVES (Finland, Germany; Jury Prize in Competition) and actress Merve Dizdar in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's ABOUT DRY GRASSES (Turkey, France, Germany, Sweden).

Some Bulgarian filmmakers whose work was screened at the FFC in 2022 can also look forward to awards as their titles were awarded the "Vasil Gendov" prizes of the Bulgarian Filmmakers' Association in the end of May. Orlin Milchov's THE ART OF FALLING, which was screened in the FFC's Youth Film Competition, was named Best Bulgarian Film. Zornitsa Sophia's Bulgarian-German co-production MOTHER (Spectrum) received the awards for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (Daria Dimitrova), Tonislav Hristov's Finnish-Bulgarian THE GOOD DRIVER (Spectrum) won Best Debut Film, actor Malin Krastev received the award for Best Actor