By Christopher Vourlias
Three Kilometers to the End of the World (Cannes 2024) | VPRO Cinema
Romanian director Emanuel Pârvu's "Three Kilometers to the End of the World," a contender for the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, won the top prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival on Friday night.
The actor-director's third feature film was awarded by a jury led by American writer-director Paul Schrader ("First Reformed"), which also included Swedish actor and producer Noomi Rapace ("Lamb"), Finnish director-writer Juho Kuosmanen ("Compartment No. 6"), Sarajevo-born, Paris-based director, writer and editor Una Gunjak ("Excursion") and Slovenian actor Sebastian Cavazza ("Men Don't Cry").
"Three Kilometers," which follows a 17-year-old victim of a homophobic attack in a small town in Romania's Danube Delta, explores the aftermath of the attack on his rural community from multiple perspectives. Guy Lodge of Variety described it as a "claustrophobic study of personal and institutional prejudices targeting a communal misfit," and praised the "cinematic legacy" of the formal achievements, but added that "there's little about the film that feels idiosyncratic, either in style or in its superficial human portrayals."
