Wrapping Edinburgh 09.

By David Hudson on 06/28/2009

[Updated through 6/30]

This year's edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival wraps with an announcement of the award-winners. Looking back on his predictions, we can see that Neil Young hit one on the nose: "Easier With Practice" is named the Best New International Feature.

In other categories, he came close. "Moon" did pull out in front of "Fish Tank" after all, taking the Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature. Even so, Andrea Arnold's Cannes entry isn't coming away empty-handed: Katie Jarvis wins the PPG Award for Best Performance in a British Feature Film.

Among the other awards: "Boris Ryzhy" (Best Documentary), "The Secret Life of Kells" (Audience Award), "Sin Nombre" (New Directors) and "Humpday" (Rotten Tomatoes Critical Consensus Award).

Meantime, Jonathan Romney has a roundup for the Independent and David Cairns has seen "Antichrist": "Bergman's 'Persona' might hint at what's being aimed at here, and Altman's 'Three Women' similarly took its cue from the director's dreams, but wisely neither of those films tries to put forward some kind of didactic point, which [Lars von Trier] certainly seems to be trying for here. Long stretches of the film are not dreamlike, intense audio-visual experiences. Long stretches are talkie chamber piece in which characters fire ill-thought-out philosophies at each other. If it were a parade of visuals aiming for abstract poetry, the movie might be OK."

Updates, 6/29: David Cairns wraps it up.

David Cairns strikes again, this time in The Auteurs' Notebook: "'Fish Tank' is an honorable attempt to sugar the pill without diluting the medicine, but it fails. It's heart isn't in it. For all the realist shouting and swearing, it's almost as if there's a fear of conflict and negativity."

Update, 6/30: Time Out London presents a final roundup.

[Photo: "Moon," Sony Pictures Classics, 2009]

Tags: Andrea Arnold, Antichrist, Duncan Jones, Edinburgh 2009, Fish Tank, Katie Jarvis, Lars von Trier, Moon