Film Festivals The company runs a full office at many of the major film festivals, particularly the Cannes Film Festival where it has represented films in official selection over a number of years, including award winners Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, Mona Lisa, Paris Texas, Raining Stones, Land and Freedom, Junk Mail, together with festival favourites Bandit Queen, The Long Day Closes, The Polish Bride. 2001 saw the company represented seven films in official selection, including the Palme D’or prize winner Nanni Moretti’s The Son’s Room, Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day, Jean-Luc Godard’s Eloge de l’Amour, and Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Kandahar. At Venice the company represented four major international films in selection including Larry Clark’s Bully, Werner Herzog’s Invincible, and Santosh Sivan’s Asoka. The company was also present at the San Sebastian Festival, representing the festival opening competition film, Rose Troche’s The Safety of Objects. For the Berlin Film Festival 2002, The PR Contact represented the Golden Bear winner, Japanese animation director Hiyao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. The Cannes Film Festival 2002 saw the company represent seven films in official selection, making the greatest impression with the work it did for Latin American cinema, representing the ‘hit film of the Festival’ (The Guardian) Fernando Meirelles ‘Cidade de Deus (City of God)’, Karim Ainouz’ ‘Madame Sata’, and Pablo Trapero’s ‘El Bonaerense’, working also with Walter Salles in his capacity of producer of the first of these two films. In addition, the company handled the much anticipated competition films Gaspar Noe’s ‘Irreversible’, Nicole Garcia’s ‘L’Adversaire’, as well as the join winner of the Best Director award, Korean director IM Kwon-taek’s ‘Chihwaseon’. For all of these films, The PR Contact takes on the role of creating international awareness and exposure for the film-makers as well as contributing to the world-sales of the film. Films handled in 2003 included Vincent Gallo’s highly debated The Brown Bunny, Samira Makhmalbaf’s Jury Prize winner At Five In The Afternoon, Daft Punk’s Interstellar 555, Lou Ye’s Purple Butterfly, Arnaud Desplechin’s In The Company of Men, as well as three other films selected for official screening. 2004 films represented at Cannes included Asia Argento’s controversial The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, Jean Luc Godard’s Notre Musique, Chao Yang’s Passages which received special mention in the Camera D’Or, Jessica Hausner’s Hotel, and Damien Odoul’s En Attendant le Deluge, as well as handling all media relations for official festival sidebar event Homage A Brasil - 40 years of Brazilian Cinema which saw Brazilian Cultural Minister Gilbert Gil and numerous directors and producers attend Cannes. In addition to Cannes, The PR Contact has a major presence each year at Berlin, Venice, Rio de Janeiro, with experience also of Toronto, San Sebastian and other international festivals. At this year’s Venice Film Festival, 2004, The PR Contact will represent eight films in official selection including works by such internationally renowned and Award winning directors as Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away), Hou Hsiao-hsien (City of Sadness, Millenium Mambo), Frédéric Fonteyne (Une Liason Pornographique), and Im Kwon-Taek (Chihwaseon, Chunhyang). The company also represents the Raindance Film Festival, its sister festival Raindance East, and BIFA (British Independent Film Awards), the annual awards held each October which celebrates achievement and excellence in the independent film-making community.