'The Eternal Return of Antonis P’ Wins Work in Progress Award at Karlovy Vary

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has awarded its first-ever $12,600 (€10,000) award to the best film in its Works In Progress section, which screens unfinished projects from Central and Eastern Europe.

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The Eternal Return of Antonis P, a feature debut about the willful disappearance of a TV presenter, written and directed by Greek filmmaker Elina Psykou, won the award. An international jury selected the film as most promising out of 18 productions, and the production will receive €10,000  in in-kind services from KVIFF’s partner Barrandov Studios,  the Czech Republic's largest film studios.

The jury comprised Ivo Andrle of Czech distributor Aerofilms, Silje Nikoline Glimsdal of Denmark’s TrustNordisk and Amy Dotson of the Independent Filmmaker Project.

The jury released the following statement: “In general, we were quite happy with the quality level of the presented projects, but one stood out above the rest. We chose the film with the most unique and clear vision of the filmmakers and we see great promise in the project. The jury is happy to support the first feature film of the director and we imagine a bright future for her. Even from the short presentation we were intrigued by the main character, his world and the film's visual style.”

The one-day Works in Progress presentation has been a longtime fixture of the modern, post-1994 KVIFF. It is designed for international distributors, sales agents, and festival programmers and offers a selection of feature films that have been recently completed or are still in production, the premieres of which are expected after July of the year it is held. Producers present their films in an eight-minute pitch, including a trailer and/or film clips.