GFF 2012: CineSkinny Awards

FILM OF THE FESTIVAL
The Kid with a Bike: The Dardenne brothers' most accessible film to date is also one of their best.
Runner-up: This Is Not a Film

DOC OF THE FESTIVAL
Bill Cunningham New York: A charming, quick-footed profile of a charming, quick-footed man who has dedicated his life to documenting beauty on the streets of Manhattan.
Runner-up: Superheroes

SCOTTISH FILM OF THE FESTIVAL
The Making of Longbird: There was more wit, style and invention in this beguiling 15-minute mock-doc animation from Will Anderson than in any of the Scottish features on offer at this year’s fest. If Charlie Kaufman was to remake Chuck Jones’ Duck Amuck it might look something like this.

BEST BLAST FROM THE PAST
Death Watch: This lyrical sci-fi, shot in Glasgow in 1979 by mercurial French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier (Clean Slate, The Clockmaker), is both a prescient vision of our technology- and reality TV-obsessed society and a document of Glasgow in all its faded beauty at the end of the 1970s. It’s one of the great, unsung, British films. Bravo to GFF and distributor Park Circus for reviving this masterpiece.
Runner-up: Laura

BROMANCE OF THE FESTIVAL
Love has been in the air over the last few weeks...Man love. Mark Millar and Nacho Vigalondo have been the couple of GFF 2012 – see the back page of Wednesday’s CineSkinny. You can keep up with this hilarious, and rather sweet, bromance by following Mark (@mrmarkmillar) and Nacho (@Vigalondo) on Twitter.

THE "FILM I'M GLAD I SAW, BUT I'M NEVER GOING TO SEE AGAIN" AWARD
Some films demand to be rewatched. Others are so toxic they need to be buried in concrete 50ft below ground. Markus Schleinzer’s Michael, a clear-eyed, matter-of-fact look at child abuse – a good alternative title would’ve been Michael: Portrait of a Pedophile – falls into the latter camp. It’s brilliant. Now only if that procedure from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was real and I could wipe Michael from my memory.

THE "FILM I SAW AT A PRESS SCREENING, BUT WISH I SAW WITH FRIGHTFEST'S LATE-NIGHT GOREHOUNDS" AWARD
The silence of the press screening is often golden. There’s no chatter, or text messaging, or stench of multiplex munchies – not even Scotland’s hardened film hacks can stomach nachos and radioactive cheeze at 10am – but they can be a bit lacking in atmosphere. Sometimes you want to experience a film en masse. The Raid is a perfect example, where every bone crunching kung-fu move would have received a round of applause from the bloodthirsty gorehounds.

THE "NEVER JUDGE A FILM BY ITS TAGLINE" AWARD
Described as the “British Glee”, I was not looking forward to the screening of Marc Evans’ Hunky Dory, a musical set in 70s South Wales, but this moniker couldn’t have been more misleading. A joyous coming-of-age movie in the mode of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, it was a very welcome surprise to discover it was ace.

THE "FILM ABOUT GETTING OLD THAT NO ONE SHOULD SEE" AWARD
With a cast that includes Maggie Smith, Judie Dench, Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a kind of Carry on Pensioner, is going to do handsomely at the box office. Some of director John Madden’s earlier romps, like Shakespeare in Love and Mrs. Brown, felt lightweight, but The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is so unsubstantial that it could be used to calibrate the scales used to weigh the Higgs boson particle.

THE "FILM ABOUT GETTING OLD THAT EVERYONE SHOULD SEE" AWARD
Cinema tends to balance senility with syrup (see On Golden Pond and Driving Miss Daisy), but Wrinkles, a Spanish animation about a retired bank manager whose mind is slowly succumbing to Alzheimer's, is a sensitive and beautifully humane portrait of old age that leaves the crass sentimentality of Hollywood for dust.