Just like the Quarter-Finals, the Semi-finals of the Euro 2012 Book & Film Spotlight featured two closely fought matches with another subjective penalty shoot-out deciding a game.
Semi-Final #1: Silent Souls (Russia) vs L’Apollonide (France)
Semi-Final #2: The Strange Case of Angelica (Portugal) vs My Joy (Ukraine)
Russia and France split the story and acting categories while managed to match each other in direction and cinematography. In the end, the slick visuals of L’Apollonide provided to be the difference in sending France to the final.
Portugal and Ukraine split the acting and production categories but matched each other in the three remaining categories. Ultimately, penalties were used to pick a winner. Unlike the Euro soccer tournament, Portugal easily won the film penalty shoot-out. The Strange Case of Angelica hit all the right emotional notes and was a pure delight from start to finish. In the last round, the dark atmosphere of My Joy overcame the charming The Salt of Life. However, that atmosphere failed to work this time because even though The Strange Case of Angelica is light hearted, it features a tinge of grayness due to its metaphysical element.
Euro 2012 Book & Film Spotlight, Final draw
The final will feature the French film L’Apollonide taking on the Portugese work The Strange Case of Angelica.
Soccer Semi-Finals
Spain overcame Portugal 4-2 on penalties after 120 minutes failed to produce a goal. In the other semi-final, Italy put on a class act and easily brushed aside Germany 2-1 to book a July 1 final meeting with Spain.
It was refreshing to see both Portugal and Italy take the game to their opponents instead of sitting back and soaking all the pressure. While Spain managed to survive the Portugese, Germany had no answer for Italy. In fact, Italy could have scored 4-5 goals in total and kept attacking despite holding a 2-0 lead.
A quick word about Portugal’s penalties. As Bruno Alves walked to take the third penalty for Portugal, Nani ran up to Alves, sent him back and instead took the kick himself. Nani confidently roofed the penalty but Alves had to make the walk to the penalty spot again a few minutes later. The fact that he had to make that stressful walk twice might have unhinged Alves who hit the crossbar with his kick.
Soccer vs Film
The Euro 2012 soccer final will be between Spain and Italy so there will be no overlap with the film spotlight final which will feature France and Portugal. Spain failed to make it out of the group stages of the book & film spotlight while the Italian film narrowly lost out in the quarter-finals.
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