As a traditional part of the festival programme, three finalists of the LUX Prize will also be introduced.
In the cooperation with Europsky parlament – Informacna kancelaria na Slovensku at the 19th edition of the Bratislava IFF are also features three finalists of the LUX Prize, awarded by the European Parliament since 2007. As its current President Antonio Tajani said: “The Lux Prize not only brings cinema closer to citizens, but Europe to Europeans.”
In accordance with this creed, three remarkable European films made it to the finals. A French “queer” drama 120 Beats per Minute (120 battements par minute, 2017) by Robin Campillo, telling the story of the activist movement ACT UP, which tried to increase awareness of HIV in the early nineties in Paris. A character study on contemporary Europe, problems of integration and the search for identity called Western (2017), shot by the renowned German director and screenwriter Valeska Grisebach and Sami Blood (Sameblod, 2016), an engrossing directorial debut of a talented upcoming Swedish screenwriter Amanda Kernell, dedicated to a dark chapter of the Swedish colonial history.
The festival will also introduce the film Ciambra (A Ciambra, 2017), one of the top ten nominees for this year’s LUX Prize and, at the same, Italy’s candidate for the Academy Awards. Ciambra is the name of a ghetto in southern Italy and the home of a closed Roma community. One of its members is a 14-year-old Pio, who piously looks up to his older brother Cosimo. One day Cosimo suddenly disappears and Pio decides to take his place. During his rapid maturation, Pio is accompanied by his good friend Aiyva, an illegal migrant from Burkina Faso. After his acclaimed feature debut Mediterranea, the talented director Jonas Carpignano has filmed yet another realistic film that so fantastically works with the spontaneity of its non-actors. Both films are part of a loose trilogy connected by the main protagonists. While in Mediterranea, the fate of a migrant called Aiyvu lies at the forefront of the story, Ciambra follows the life story of a young Roma boy Pio.