{"id":360488,"date":"2025-08-20T22:20:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T22:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/360488\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T22:20:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T22:20:17","slug":"canadian-feature-mortician-takes-top-prize-at-edinburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/360488\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Feature \u2018Mortician\u2019 Takes Top Prize At Edinburgh\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tAbdolreza Kahani\u2019s Mortician has won the Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, the top prize at the <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/edinburgh\/\" id=\"auto-tag_edinburgh\" data-tag=\"edinburgh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Edinburgh<\/a> Film Festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe award comes with a \u00a350,000 cash prize and is decided by an audience vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe film follows a reclusive mortician who faces an unusual request from a dissident singer in hiding. Mortician was among ten features presented in Competition at <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/eiff\/\" id=\"auto-tag_eiff\" data-tag=\"eiff\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EIFF<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tElsewhere, the winner of the Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence Competition was Joanna Vymeris\u2019s Mother Goose. The short film competition winner was also decided on by an audience vote and comes with a \u00a315,000 cash prize.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe short\u2019s synopsis reads: After the death of her husband, Janet decides to distract herself by rearing a goose, which is to be the centrepiece of her Christmas dinner. However, as she grows ever more isolated from her daughter, Janet\u2019s need to nurture the goose becomes an obsession: one which will cost her dearly. A modern-day Grimm\u2019s fairy tale about grief, isolation, and a goose.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tEIFF ended this evening, and was Paul Ridd\u2019s second edition in charge. Speaking about the edition, he said: \u201cAs the 2025 Edinburgh International Film Festival draws to a close, I am once again moved and humbled by the hard work and astonishing effort that everyone has put into making this Festival stimulating, entertaining, and fun. I am so grateful to all the organisations, teams, and individuals who put their hearts and souls into this.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tHe added: \u201cI am hugely inspired by all the filmmakers in Competition and beyond, as well as all our special guests, who have worked so brilliantly with us to platform their work on the big screen and have been so generous with their time with audiences and with the industry, who we know very well are hungry for something fresh and exciting. I cannot wait for 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abdolreza Kahani\u2019s Mortician has won the Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, the top prize at the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,95633,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-360488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-eiff","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-scotland","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115063425035303711","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}