On behalf of my fellow judges, Emma Clarke and Jo Wilson, I would first like to congratulate the organisers of this first Graham Greene Film Review Competition, and then, most heartily, commend all those who entered this inaugural contest which has, of course, taken place in the dark shadow of the coronavirus pandemic.
For the judges, the actual entrants were deliberately kept anonymous, but their contributions spanned 70 years of cinema and a very wide range of genres – from sci-fi and drama-documentaries to biopics and animation, not to mention two of Greene’s own titles, The Third Man and Neil Jordan’s 1999 remake of The End of the Affair.
It almost goes without saying that trying to find a winner from among such a varied batch of reviews, not to mention attempting to achieve an eventual consensus among the judges, was no easy task.
In the end it proved a very close run thing between two exceptional pieces of work plus an honourable mention for the second runner-up.
Quentin Falk, Graham Greene Film Review Competition Judge