The Excellence Award of the 2015 Comedy Cluj Festival was offered posthumously to the great actor Peter O’Toole. His daughter Kate O’Toole took the award handed out by Gilda Lazar (JTI) and by director Declan Cassidy. The actress greeted the audience in Romanian and mentioned that it was not the first time that she accepts an award in her father’s name, but it is the first time that she does it following his death and this is all the more impressive for her
Polish long film “The Citizen”, a double winner
The great winner of the seventh edition of Comedy Cluj is the film “Obywatel / The Citizen” of Polish director Jerzy Stuhr, that won the trophies for “Best Film” and “Best Script”. 
The decision of the jury was unanimous and motivated by the fact that it is a highly ambitious film with an excellently structured script, a film conceived to have a strong message, even it is conceived in the genre of comedy, according to a press release issued by festival organizers.
The film tells the story of Jan Bratek who falls in a coma after an accident and ends up living again his 60 years in the political context of Poland after the World War. Director Jerzy Stuhr, who also plays the lead role in the film, received the awards handed out by film critics Neil Young and James B. Evans.
“I have worked three years on this film and I am glad to see that a film of such importance for my generation, first of all, was so well received both by the audience and the jury”, Jerzy Stuhl declared.
Unlike previous years, the jury decided to give two awards for best actors, instead of one, as well as a special mention. Therefore, the Award for Best Actress was granted to Candela Pena for her performance in the Spanish film “Las ovejas no pierden el tren / Sidetracked”, and the Award for Best Actor went to Zsolt Kovacs for his part in “VAN valami furcsa és megmagyarázhatatlan / Some Inexplicable Reason”. The Hungarian film also received the Special Mention of the Jury.
“Who’s Up?” (France) was chosen „Best Independent Film in the competition, and “Chinese Treachery” won the award for best Students’ Short. The jury of the short film competition decided, as well, that the production “The Taste” deserved a special mention.
Besides the two juries of the competitions in the festival, viewers who attended Comedy Cluj decided by voting that, out of the 200 films of the festival, Belgian director Florian Mischa’s film “Boder Die Einsmakeit des Killers vor dem Schuss / A Hitman’s Solitude Before the Shot” deserved the Viewers’ Choice Award.
The 2015 Comedy Cluj International Film Festival was organized by the European Foundation for Urban Culture, with the support of Transylvania Bank and of the National Centre of Cinematography
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