A24’s Close, which won the Grand Prix in Cannes, has picked up another accolade, capturing the jury prize for top narrative film at the Hamptons International Film Festival.
The 30th edition of the festival, which wraps this weekend, also gave the top documentary honor to Pray for Our Sinners, directed by Sinéad O’Shea.
Director Lukas Dhont’s Close follows the intense friendship between 13-year-old boys Léo and Remi, which suddenly gets disrupted. Struggling to understand what has happened, Léo approaches Sophie, Rémi’s mother. The film is billed as an exploration of friendship and responsibility. The leading roles in Close are played by newcomers Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele. Léa Drucker and Kevin Janssens, Marc Weiss, Igor Van Dessel, and Léon Bataille also star.
“Our team feels incredibly honoured to receive this year’s Hamptons Film Festival Jury Award,” Dhont said. “We want to thank the jury and the festival for celebrating this film. Close is an intimate piece about the human need and desire for friendships and connections. A film about the pressures of masculinity on young men growing up. An ode to tenderness and vulnerability. We feel lucky that the film has already moved so many and hope it will continue to do so.”
Belgium last month made the film its official submission in the Oscar race for Best International Feature.
Pray for Our Sinners, set in O’Shea’s hometown north of Dublin, Ireland, explores the control exerted by the Catholic Church.
In addition to the two feature winners, the Hamptons shorts program yielded two prize winners and a special mention honoree. Snow in September, directed by Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir, won Best Narrative Short and When the LAPD Blows Up Your Neighborhood, directed by Nathan Truesdell, won Best Documentary Short. The Sentence of Michael Thompson, directed by Kyle Thrash and Haley Elizabeth Anderson, earned a special mention.
Held at a handful of sites on the East End of Long Island, about two hours east of Manhattan, the Hamptons Film Festival has established itself as a notable stop on the fall fest circuit as awards campaigns and the season for prestige fare are both on the upswing.