One of the year's most highly acclaimed films, August: Osage County directed by John Wells, has won a four awards including "Best Film of the Year" at the 18th edition of Capri, Hollywood – The International Film Festival, which ended here today. In addition, Meryl Streep won the Fest's Best Actress Award; the cast, which includes Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, Abigail Breslin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliette Lewis, Margo Martindale, Dermot Mulroney, Julianne Nicholson, Sam Shepard and Misty Upham won the 2013 Best Acting Ensemble of the Year Award; and Oscar®-winner Chris Cooper received the Fest's Lifetime Achievement Award.
Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom walked away with three awards – Idris Elba was named Best Actor, Naomie Harris was named Best Supporting Actress and U2's "Ordinary Love" was named Best Song. Elba and Harris collected the film's awards on December 30th following its Italian premiere here.
David O. Russell, whose Silver Linings Playbook won four awards at last years festival, received the 2013 Best Director award for American Hustle. He and co-writer Eric Warren Singer won the Best Original Screenplay award for their story, which is loosely based on the FBI ABSCAM operation of the late 1970s and early '80s.
12 Years A Slave also picked up two Capri, Hollywood nods – Best Adapted Screenplay to John Ridley for his script based upon "Twelve Years A Slave" by Solomon Northrup and Best Supporting Actor to Michael Fassbender.
The Capri Audience Award went to Disney's Saving Mr. Banks, starring Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks and the Best Animated Feature Award went to DreamWorks Animation's The Croods.
The Capri Visionary Movie Award went to The Great Beauty, directed by Paolo Sorrentino. A Golden Globe®–nominee, it is on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's shortlist for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination. Other awards went to Valeria Golino as European Actress of the Year and to Riccardo Scamarcio and Emily Ratajkowski (UK) as Capri Rising Stars.
Pascal Vicedomini, Capri, Hollywood founder and producer, said: "This year's Festival was a huge success. We screened an amazing array of first class international movies, many of which were Italian premieres. The competition was strong in all categories, the winners are justly deserving of the honors that they have received and we congratulate them for their extraordinary contributions to the art of motion pictures. We also sincerely thank all of the producers and distributors who made their wonderful films available to us."
Capri, Hollywood – The International Film Festival 2013 was presented by the Capri In The World Institute with the sponsorship of Hogan (Tod's Group), the participation of Snav, Sippic, Italian Independent Productions and Iris (Mediaset's cinema channels) and with support from the Italian Ministry of Culture (Dg Cinema), The European Union and The Campania Region of Italy.
Award-wining director Michel Radford (UK) chaired this year's festival and African-American actress Shannon Kane was mistress of ceremonies. The Honorary Board of the Festival was comprised of Mark Canton, Jim Gianopulos, Harvey Weinstein, Jeremy Thomas, Avi Lerner, Lawrence Bender, Jason Weinberg, Vanessa Redgrave as well as Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo, Franco Nero and Italian music legend Tony Renis.
The celebration of International cinema included many film premieres, a tribute to iconic Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman, a retrospective of the most remarkable films of the past season as well as ceremonies for the much sought-after Capri Awards that went to actors, writers and filmmakers.
