‘Saint Omer,’ ‘Close’ ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp’ Win Big at Seville

Strengthening its kids credentials in this year’s international feature film Oscar race where it represents France, Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer” edged Belgian’s Oscar entry “Close” for top honors, the Giraldillo de Oro, at a busy Seville European Film Festival.A celebration of European arthouse which could not be more timely – the fall-off in arthouse attendance proved the festival’s main talking point – Seville’s top prizes served to underscore the vast variety of tones and issues in current European cinema.“Saint Omer,” Variety noted in a Venice review, is “a quietly momentous French courtroom drama that subtly but radically rewrites the rules of the game.”Lukas Dhont’s sophomore feature “Close” shared Seville’s Jury Prize with João Pedro Rodrigues’ “Will-o’-the-Wisp’.” The two films could not be more different tonally, “Close” weighing in as “a profoundly felt portrait of two inseparable friends” whereas “Will-o’-the-Wisp is,

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