The Extraordinary life of Rocky

Michael Palmaers’ Nuru and Kevin Meul’s The Extraordinary Life of Rocky both won awards at the FLICKERS: Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF). Nuru took first prize for Best Animation while The Extraordinary Life of Rocky grabbed the Grand Prize for Best Comedy Short.

These are not the first US awards for either film: Nuru had already won Best Animation at the Palm Springs Shortfest while The Extraordinary Life of Rocky (pictured) received the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Short in Seattle. In Nuru an opportunistic director of an abandoned zoo assigns a doctor to perform medical experiments on an gorilla. The film is inspired by the paintings The Explanation and The Empire of Light by René Magritte and was produced by Eric Goossens for Walking The Dog.

Kevin Meul’s short, The Extraordinary Life of Rocky, has won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Short at the Seattle International Film Festival (17 May-10 June). With this win, the short is now eligible to enter the Short Films category of the Academy Awards.

In its statement, the jury of three praised The Extraordinary Life of Rocky as ‘A darkly funny exploration of a young man with a curse. This unlikely romance marries perfect period detail with a wonderfully morbid Scandinavian sensibility.’ The award also comes with a cash prize of $1,000.

Four Flemish shorts have been selected for competition at the Lille European Film Festival. Nicolas Daenens’ 27, Rosto’s The Monster of Nix, Kevin Meul’s The Extraordinary Life of Rocky and Wouter Bongaert’s Mouse For Sale will screen in the French-Flemish “métropole” from 30 March-6 April.

The Lille European Film Festival is organised annually with the purpose of revealing short film talents, facilitating meetings with potential partners or buyers, and increasing the general public’s awareness of short films. The European Film Festival was founded as a festival exclusively dedicated to shorts, but now shows feature films as well. Participation in the fest’s competition, however, is reserved for short films only.

Guy Lee Thys’ new feature Mixed Kebab and Geoffrey Enthoven’s award-winning Come As You Are have been selected for the Cinequest Film Festival (28 February-11 March) in California. Three shorts also made it to the pioneering fest's final line-up: Kevin Meul’s The Extraordinary Life of Rocky, Boris Sverlow’s Shattered Past and Nicolas Daenens’ 27.

Mixed Kebab, which will premiere internationally in the Global Landscapes Competition of the festival, is praised by Cinequest’s Terra Wood for the way the ‘electrifying and multicultural cast brilliantly captures courage, tolerance and the beauty of love conquering hate’. Geoffrey Enthoven returns to Cinequest after his previous feature The Over the Hill Band was presented as part of the 2010 edition of the fest.

Geoffrey Enthoven’s Come As You Are and Kevin Meul’s short film The Extraordinary Life of Rocky have won the Golden Spike for Best Feature and the Meeting Point Award for Best Short Film respectively at the 56th Valladolid International Film Festival (22-29 October). In addition to netting the Spanish fest’s main prize, Come As You Are also won the Young Jury Award in the Official Competition.

Come As You Are has been enjoying remarkable success both at home and abroad. In its home territory, the film has already registered over 150,000 admissions. After its world premiere at the World Film Festival of Montréal, where it won the Grand Prix des Amériques and the Audience Award, among others, the film was sold to nine territories including Brazil, Canada, Germany, France and Spain. Negotiations with other countries are ongoing, while the rumors of an international remake keep surfacing. International sales are handled by Films Boutique.