FRENCH FILM INDUSTRY GIVES 4 PRIZES TO FILM ON AIDS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 12, 1993                   TAG: 9303120216
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: PATRICK McDOWELL ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: PARIS                                LENGTH: Medium
FRENCH FILM INDUSTRY GIVES 4 PRIZES TO FILM ON AIDS
This week, the French film industry bestowed four prizes, including Best Film, on "Les Nuits Fauves" (Savage Nights), a film about AIDS. The film's director-star died early this month of the disease.
The 18th annual Cesars awards ceremony was dedicated to filmmaker and actor Cyril Collard, who died of acquired immune deficiency syndrome at age 35.
"He chose to live and to survive by the cinema," said producer Toscan de Plantier in opening the ceremonies, France's version of Hollywood's Academy Awards.
Collard's autobiographical story of an HIV-positive bisexual man's struggle with looming death has become a cult hit in the five months since its release.
Nella Banfi, the film's producer, wept as she accepted the Cesar for Best First Film.
Tears also overwhelmed Romane Bohringer, who played Collard's lover, as she accepted the award for Best Young Feminine Hope.
"I hope you are proud of me, Cyril," Bohringer said. "I'm proud to have been your Laura."
"Les Nuits Fauves" also won for Best Editing.
Catherine Deneuve won Best Actress for "Indochine" and received a special award for lifetime achievement.
"Indochine," a lavishly filmed epic of a plantation owner's struggle with love and revolution in colonial Vietnam, topped the awards with five.
Dominique Blanc won Best Supporting Actress for her role as a Saigon nightclub hostess. "Indochine" also won for Best Sets, Best Cinematography and Best Sound.
Claude Rich won Best Actor for his role in "The Supper."
Claude Sautet captured Best Director and Andre Dussolier won Best Supporting Actor for "Un Coeur en Hiver" (A Heart in Winter).
Coline Serreau won Best Screenplay for "La Crise" (The Crisis), a comedy about the misadventures of a man who loses his wife and job the same day.
Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's "High Heels," a sexy tale about a young woman rescued from prison by a mysterious judge, won Best Foreign-Language Film.
The awards were determined through secret balloting by the 3,000 members of France's Academie des Arts et Techniques du Cinema.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB