PanARMENIAN.Net

Atom Egoyan’s Adoration awarded the 34th Ecumenical Jury Prize
29.05.2008 19:02 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Canadian director of Armenian origin
Atom Egoyan was awarded the 34th Ecumenical Jury Prize
for the humanistic values they discovered in
Adoration, a film that explores cultural intolerance
and misinformation.

"I am so overwhelmed by this prize because it places
this film in another context," Egoyan said of his
award. The Toronto filmmaker won the same prize 11
years ago for his masterwork, The Sweet Hereafter,
jam.canoe.ca reports.

-Adoration is an intimate film. It’s very much rooted
in this culture and I’m so proud to represent the
country at this level," Egoyan said.

Adoration focuses on one young man’s fascination with
the possibility he’s the spawn of two historical
figures – and how his personal obsession is both
enabled, and threatened, by technology.

The film also stars Scott Speedman, Rachel Blanchard,
Kenneth Welsh, and Arsinée Khanjian (Egoyan’s wife).

The director says his screenplay grew out of a
true-life story he’d heard 20 years ago about a young
man who convinced his pregnant Irish girlfriend to
board a flight, carrying a bomb that she didn’t know
had been planted on her. "This story – or a version of
it – is read in the main character’s high school and
it triggers his imagination," Egoyan explained.