MANILA, Philippines — Alpha: The Right to Kill, directed by Brillante Mendoza, won the Special Jury Award (Premiul special al juriului) at the 15th Bucharest International Film Festival (BIFF) during the awards ceremony held in Cinema Elvire Popesco, Romania on June 30.
Written by Troy Espiritu, Alpha is a story of the controversial battle between illegal drugs and the government of the Philippines under the leadership of Pres. Rodrigo Duterte. It stars Allen Dizon, Baron Geisler, Angela Cortez and Elijah Filamor.
Alpha was also the recipient of the Special Jury Prize at the 66th San Sebastián International Film Festival (SSIFF) in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain, and the Jury Prize Ex-Aequo at the 11th Beaune International Police Film Festival (PFF) in France. It was screened at the 23rd Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) in South Korea, 34th Warsaw Film Festival (WFF) in Poland, 12th Sydney Film Festival (SFF) in Australia, 29th Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF), 25th Minsk International Film Festival (MIFF) in Belarus, 14th Shaken Aimanov International Film Festival (AFF) in Kazakhstan, 19th Tokyo FilmEx in Japan, 40th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) in Egypt, 37th Torino Film Festival (TFF) in Italy and 23rd Kerala International Film Festival (KIFF) in India.
Other winners were Homeward by Nariman Aliev of Ukraine (Grand Prize), Piranhas by Claudio Giovannes of Italy (Best Director) and Piranhas by Claudio Giovannesi, Roberto Saviano and Maurizio Braucci of Italy (Best Screenplay).
The BIFF is organized by the Charta Foundation under the High Patronage of ASR Prince Radu. Eighteen films from various countries were featured in the following sections: Competition, Panorama, Focus France and Retrospective Vivi Dragan Vasile and Cristian Niculescu.