CHECK CHECK POTO by Julia Varga wins THE RATIU FOUNDATION AWARD at Astra Film Festival 2011

The Ratiu Foundation is pleased to announce that the winner of the Ratiu Foundation Award for Best European Documentary Film is Check Check Poto by Julia Varga. Check Check Poto is a French production which focuses on the life of a community youth centre from Aubervilliers, a suburb of Paris. Behind the closed doors of this refuge, this documentary draws an engaging, but harsh panorama of young people desperately searching for self esteem. The award was presented at the 11th edition of the Astra Film Festival of Sibiu, Romania (25 - 30 October 2011) which enjoyed an extraordinary success, both in terms of attendance and programme. Starting from 2006, the Ratiu Foundation has supported The Ratiu Foundation Award. In previous years, the Award was offered to Reka Kincses for A Balkan Champion (in 2006), Petr Lom for his documentary On a Tightrope (in 2007), and David MacDougall for Gandhi’s Children (in 2009). Astra is one of the most interesting and esteemed festivals in Central and South-Eastern Europe. It aims to encourage the use of documentary film as a means for cultural and cross-cultural understanding, to showcase the best productions, and also to give an opportunity to film-makers to network and interact with other professionals and with a broad audience. The festival has both a local and a European audience and participation – film-makers, students and film lovers from Romania, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Serbia, Bulgaria, Italy etc. The programme of the 2011 Astra Film Festival consisted of 100 documentary films from 30 countries, with 54 films competing in 4 categories (International, Europe, Romania, and Student Docs). Many of the films were international premières. An important part of the festival was Astra Film Junior strand, a festival of documentary films for children and teenagers – one of the vastest extra-curricular educational activities in Romania. More details on http://astrafilm.ro. Photo: still from Check Check Poto by Julia Varga © courtesy of Julia Varga