17th edition of the International Film Festival Bratislava that will open its gates from November 12 – 17 in municipal and club cinema theatres around Bratislava downtown will proudly present the best and the most remarkable European films of the past year. Mustang, The High Sun, Mediterranea, Flotel Europa, One Floor Below – this is just a sample of celluloid gems that will be featured in a separate programme section entitled Europa.
The 17th edition of the Bratislava Film Festival features a handful of programme changes. One of them is establishing Europa, a separate new section that will from now on be dedicated to hand-picking the sweetest berries of the latest European cinema harvest. The section will hopefully create a platform to observe topics that attract European filmmakers’ attention and how the idea of European togetherness is reflected by motion pictures that are created in this geographical and cultural area. Supporting multi-national co-productions is among typical features of the European Union’s audio-visual policy, which is why it makes more and more sense to think of European cinema as one organic whole that makes borders between particular national cinemas gradually disappear.
This year, Bratislava festival-goers can look forward to seeing the most outstanding European films of the past year, including Flotel Europa, a documentary by director Vladimir Tomić that has become a regular festival smash hit. Born in Sarajevo but raised in Denmark, Tomić has put his own first-hand experience of a Bosnian War refugee into a film, which is a kaleidoscope comprising fragments of home video footage of the period. A brilliantly composed and edited tale of separation and searching for lost home takes the form of a disarmingly open and intimate diary. Thanks to its timeless approach to the issue of migration, Flotel Europa may be perceived as a contribution to the ongoing debate on the lot of refugees.
The Europa programme section will also present the latest film by Radu Muntean, one of the most remarkable representatives of the so-called new wave of Romanian directors whose motion picture, Tuesday, after Christmas (Marţi, după Crăciun), screened at the Bratislava film festival in 2010. His minimalistic drama, One Floor Below (Un etaj mai jos) tells a story of an ordinary man facing a moral dilemma as a pedantic and devoted father of a family must choose between convenience and conscience. The film premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival as part of the Un Certain Regard competitive section.
Another filmmaker to return to Bratislava after several years is Croatian director and screenwriter Dalibor Matanić who personally presented his competitive short film, Mezzanine (Mezanin), at the festival in 2011. His latest feature film, The High Sun (Zvizdan), is one of the biggest European prize harvesters of this year. The film snatched Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which jumpstarted its extremely successful campaign at film festivals around the world. A riveting love story that defies religious prejudice and ethnic hatred takes place in three parts set in three decades against the backdrop of the Balkan region’s tragic tale that spans the early 1990s and the present day. was The High Sun among the nominees for the European Film Award and one of the ten runners-up for LUX Prize 2015.
The Europa section is the stage at which the Bratislava Film Festival will also present the three finalists of this year’s LUX Prize, a film award introduced in 2007 by the European Parliament in effort to support European cultural exchange by distributing select films throughout EU member states. The triplet of finalists features Mustang, which brought its Turkish director Deniz Gamze Ergüven two awards from the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs independent section at his year’s Cannes Film Festival. Furthermore, the film has been nominated for the Discovery Award at European Film Awards and will also represent France in vying for the best foreign language film at the upcoming Academy Awards. The remaining two finalists of the LUX Prize 2015 include The Lesson (Urok), a drama by a tandem of Bulgarian directors Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov that has already clinched several festival awards, and Mediterranea, a feature film debut by Jonas Carpignano, a director who comes from a mixed marriage of an Italian father and an Afro-American mother.
Mediterranea will kick off the 17th edition of the Bratislava IFF as part of a unique multinational cinema event. On Wednesday, November 11, Kino Mladosť will host a projection that will virtually interconnect cinema theatres in a number of European towns. Subsequently, cinemagoers across Europe will be able to use a Twitter wall to ask questions of director Jonas Carpignano who will be at the Bozar cinema in Brussels, which will be the main stage of the entire event.
For regular updates about the programme of the International Film Festival Bratislava, please visit our official website at www.iffbratislava.sk or our official Facebook account at www.facebook.com/bratislavaiff.
17th INTERNATIONAL film festival Bratislava
November 12 – 17, 2015
Kino Lumière, Kino Mladosť, Kino Nostalgia
Main organisers
Ars Nova civic association
Partners Production
The Festival is held with the generous financial support of Slovak Audiovisual Fund
and the Bratislava regional self-government
Come and experience it!
