The Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF) presented by American Express is pleased to announce that the inaugural Best International Feature Film Award will be presented at this year’s Festival. The award recipient will be announced at the Avenue Magazine Closing Night Gala on Saturday, September 29, 2007. The Festival runs September 21-30, 2007.

Unique in the assemblage of Canadian festivals, CIFF’s Best International Feature Film Award will honor a filmmaker from a country outside of Canada. Drawing attention to a foreign film emulates Calgary’s growing cosmopolitan population, brings awareness and relevance to the Festival as an advocate of contemporary trends and issues in international cinema, and allows CIFF to garner support for these remarkable filmmakers.

“The nominees for the inaugural award represent some of the best of the best of international cinema from this year’s festivals, as well as some North American and Canadian premiere films of the highest caliber,” said Angela Kempf, CIFF Program Manager.

All films in CIFF’s Contemporary World Cinema, Spotlight on Australia, and American Independent sections were eligible for the award. The shortlist for the 2007 CIFF Best International Feature Film Award includes: LAST TRAIN TO FREO (Australia, 2006; dir. Jeremy Sims); DRAINED / O CHEIRO DO RALO (Brazil, 2006; dir. Heitor Dhalia); THE TRUE LEGEND OF TONY VILAR / LA VERA LEGGENDA DI TONY VILAR (Italy, 2006; dir. Giuseppe Gagliardi); NEVER ON SUNDAY / MORIRSE EN DOMINGO (Mexico, 2006; dir. Daniel Gruener); 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS / 4 LUNI, 3 SAPTAMANI, si 2 ZILE (Romania, 2007; dir. Cristian Mungiu); SAVIOUR’S SQUARE / PLAC ZBAWICIELA (Poland, 2006; dir. Joanna Kos & Krzysztof Krauze); and ADRENALINE (USA, 2007; dir. Robert Archer Lynn).

Jury members for the Best International Feature Film Award are (bios below):

• Bruce Harvey, Jury Chair, is President of Calgary-based Illusions Entertainment Corporation
• Ciro Dammicco (Rome, Italy), Vice Chairman of Eagle Pictures
• Andrew Eddy (Toronto, Ont.) is Vice President, Content Distribution and Strategy for Television, at Corus Entertainment Inc.
• David Garber (California, USA) is President and CEO of Lantern Lane Entertainment
  

Other juried awards presented at the 2007 Calgary International Film Festival include the Alberta Centennial Award, inaugurated in 2005 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Alberta as a province, this award is for Best New Alberta Short Film; CityTV Award for Best Canadian Feature; Youth by Youth Cinema (YYC) Filmmaking Competition for young Alberta filmmakers from grades 4 through 12; Best International Documentary; National Film Board Best Canadian Documentary, and Movieola Best Short Film.

The American Express People’s Choice Award is also new to CIFF this year and is open to narrative and documentary feature films of the 2007 CIFF program; this award is voted on by Festival audiences. Voting takes place on the CIFF website, and the winner with the highest average rating will be announced at the Avenue Magazine Closing Gala.