tMF | The Movie-Fanatic

The Danish film Brotherhood is the big winner at the International Rome Film Festival. Helen Mirren won Best Actress for The Last Station and The Man Who Will Come grabbed two top prizes, including the Grand Jury award.

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Reports from Screen Daily:

The fourth edition of the International Rome Film Festival awarded the Golden Marc'Aurelio Award for best film to Danish-Italian Nicolo Donato's feature directorial debut Brotherhood (Brotherskab). Donato's film delves into the unexpected love that erupts between two young men in a radical right wing group. Trust Nordisk is handling world sales on the project. The award was chosen by an international jury presided over by Milos Forman. "This is a dream come true, thank you, thank you, thank you Rome," Donato said, accepting his prize. Giorgio Diritti's The Man Who Will Come won two top prizes. The 1944-set film depicting life in the small Italian village of Marzabotto before a Nazi massacre took the international jury's Silver Marc'Aurelio Grand Jury Award and the Golden Marc'Aurelio Audience Award For Best Film - BNL, which comes with a $60,000 (Euros 40,000) cash prize and is voted on by festival goers. Helen Mirren won Rome's Silver Marc'Aurelio award for best actress for her performance as Leo Tolstoy's devoted wife in Michael Hoffman's The Last Station. Gabriele Muccino presented the honour to Mirren, who brought the house down with an acceptance speech in Italian in which she cited the inspiration of Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura and that of the iconic actresses Monica Vitti, Claudia Cardinale, Stefania Sandrelli, Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren. [ read more ]

More about the winners after the jump!
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About Brotherhood, the movie: Lars leaves the army and joins a group of neo-Nazis, which organises ruthless raids against Arabs and homosexuals. Apprenticeship to the 'brotherhood' is tough and Lars is supported by Jimmy, who acts as his mentor, charged with testing his trustworthiness and the preparation of fundamentalist far right texts in the style of 'Mein Kampf'. Unforeseeably, a passionate affair ensues between the two men. A love lived in secret, until the group's racist and violent rules end up forcing the pair to face the inevitable quandary: to betray their ideological 'brothers' or betray their lover other and their own feelings. Whatever the choice, it will lead to violence one way or another, whether physical or mental.

You can watch the trailer here.

About The Last Station: After almost fifty years of marriage, the Countess Sofya, Leo Tolstoy's devoted wife, suddenly finds her entire world turned upside down. In the name of his newly created religion, the great Russian novelist has renounced his noble title and his property in favour of poverty, vegetarianism and even celibacy. What's more, Tolstoy may have been persuaded by his disciple, Chertkov, to leave the rights to his iconic novels to the Russian people rather than his own family. The woman uses every strategy at her disposal to fiercely fight against the libertarian community that is installed in her house; trying to win back what she feels belongs to her. Ostracised from Tolstoy, she only manages to see him as he is dying, in the last station.

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[ Official website of the Rome Film Festival ]