French film Party Girl wins 16th edition of Bratislava IFF

The winning films at the 16th edition of Bratislava International Film Festival (BIFF) were Party Girl, Not All Is Vigil and Million Miles Away; the former film took home a total of three awards. The latest edition of BIFF took place from November 7 – 14 in five municipal cinemas and as every year, it offered avid cinemagoers the best motion pictures of the past year and even some of the most remarkable late harvest from earlier on.

Out of nine films vying for awards in the Competition of First and Second Fiction Features, the one that clinched Grand Prix for Best Film was Party Girl, a debut by a triplet of French directors of Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger and Samuel Theis. A warm and tender portrait of a woman of the mature age, the picture sets out to address the pain of ageing, the fear of growing old alone, and the realization that the party is almost over. It tells the story of Angélique, a cabaret hostess pushing 60 but far from old who finds herself in a dilemma when one of her regulars asks her hand in marriage in obvious yet unspoken hopes that she would trade nightlife for housework. The international jury appreciated the film “for bringing us a realistic story about a woman who stands at a crossroad in her life and finds it impossible to separate from her lifestyle, which she can no longer go on living”.

 

The Best Director Award went to Vietnamese independent filmmaker Nguyen Hoang Diep for her feature-length debut, Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere (Dap Cánh Giua Không Trung), an uncompromising reflection on contemporary Vietnamese society in which a young student gets pregnant from a local loafer and finds out that the only way to raise money for abortion is to become a prostitute. The jury appreciated the film “for the sensual abilities this young director demonstrated while taking us through an odyssey of a young Vietnamese woman who battles through the hardships of the male chauvinistic society around her”.

 

Angélique Litzenburger who rendered the character of Angélique in Party Girl took home the Best Actress Award “for the nobleness she showed when revealing her true identity to us and for her ability to occupy the silver screen with her strong cinematic persona”.

 

The Best Actor Award went to Fabrício Boliveira who played the main role in Brazilian Western (Faroeste Caboclo), a modern western from drug-teeming streets of Brasilia, “for bringing his self-truth and charisma to the screen and being able to lead the character through a variety of stories and styles”.

 

The statutory awards in the Competition of First and Second Fiction Features were decided by an international panel of jurors comprising Avinoam Harpak, long-term programming director of the Jerusalem Cinematheque and Jerusalem Film Festival; George Ovashvili, Georgian director and screenwriter who recently claimed the Crystal Globe award at Karlovy Vary IFF; and popular Slovak actress Zuzana Mauréry who won Sun in the Net and Igric awards for Fine, Thanks (Ďakujem, dobre).

 

The Competition of First and Second Fiction Features was also scrutinised by the Jury of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) and the Student Jury. The former panel comprising film critics Katharina Dockhorn of Germany, Tereza Fischer of Switzerland and Martin Kaňuch of Slovakia awarded the FIPRESCI Award to I Am Yours (Jeg er din), a feature-length debut by Norwegian director Iram Haq who, in the words of the jury, “observes emotional conflicts that are comprehensible and very well acted at all times with a great sense for precision and deep understanding”.

 

The latter panel consisting of Katarína Karafová from Department of Intermedia and Multimedia at the Academy of Visual Arts, Dorota Vlnová from Department of Documentary Filmmaking at the Academy of Performing Arts and Matej Hoppan from Department of Architecture at the Academy of Visual Arts awarded the Student Jury Award to Party Girl “for having chosen a unique angle to approach the subject matter and having shown an unconventional attitude to it”.

 

Taking a cue from the fiction film competition, regulations of the documentary film competition changed this year to focus only on first and second films by competing directors in order to further emphasise the festival’s mission to discover new talent in cinema. The international jury of the Competition of First and Second Documentary Features included Portuguese filmmaker André Gil Mata whose feature-length documentary debut, Captivity (Cativeiro), won DocAlliance Award at Cannes IFF and competed at the Bratislava film festival last year; Veton Nurkollari, programme director of DokuFest Prizren, one of the most important documentary film festivals in Balkans; and Slovak film theoretician Jana Dudková.

 

The award for Best Documentary Film went to Spanish director Hermes Paralluelo for his latest film, Not All Is Vigil (No todo es vigilia), in which he follows his own grandparents who are increasingly dependent on each other due to their advanced age and long medical records but at the same time they don’t want to burden one another. The jury appreciated director’s “achievement of portraying loneliness and fear of death in a deeply humanistic and at times humorous way. Shot in gorgeous chiaroscuro with superbly controlled camera movement, the motion picture adumbrates the arrival of a major filmmaking talent”. Two years ago, Paralluelo competed at BIFF with his feature-length documentary debut, Yatasto; like then, he also visited the festival this year in person.

 

The documentary film competition jury also decided to award Special Mention to 15 Corners of the World (15 stron świata) by Polish director Zuzanna Solakiewicz “for the wonderfully intelligent mixture of experimental, observational, dance and abstract filmmaking in delivering a portrait of an exceptional artist. We strongly appreciate the director’s vocal tribute to the vanishing world of analogous sound and image media and her sense of transcendence”.

 

The winner of the Competition of Short Films became A Million Miles Away, a film by Jennifer Reeder about “bedroom” conversations of teenage girls, “for the excellence with which the director portrayed – both in an explicit and a very subtle manner – the struggle for identity, insecurity, and empathy as well as the generation gap while cleverly blending individuals into a uniform group. The film balances content, form and music in a very mature and accomplished way, showing originality, craftsmanship, intelligence and a fine sense of humour”.

 

The jury’s Special Mention was awarded to Rollercoaster (Granice wytrzymałości) by Polish director Marek Marlikowski “for the exceptional and consistent audio-visual style supported by great acting; in mere 14 minutes, the film not only shows the impact of an important emotional event but succeeds in implicitly explaining the underlying circumstances”.

 

The international panel of jurors evaluating the short film competition this year included Bülent Öztürk whose film, Houses with Small Windows, won Prix UIP Venice for best European short film and was nominated in the same category for European Film Awards last year; Nicole Santé, a film journalist from the Netherlands; and Maroš Brojo, programme director of Fest Anča, Slovakia’s largest festival of animated films.

 

Famous Czech painter and costume designer Theodor Pištěk visited the Bratislava film festival in person to accept the IFF Bratislava Award for Artistic Excellence in World Cinematography and to present the director’s cut of Amadeus by Miloš Forman for which Pištěk won Academy Award.

 

Another celebrity to attend this year’s festival was Ivan Palúch, prominent Slovak actor who became the newest holder of the commemorative tile on the Film Walk of Fame in front of Municipal Theatre of P. O. Hviezdoslav for his lifetime contribution to Slovak cinema and theatre. Palúch was catapulted among European movie stars 45 years ago thanks in part to It Rains in My Village (Biće skoro propast sveta), a film by Serbian director Aleksandar Petrović that was screened right after the award-bestowing ceremony.

 

The last filmmaker to be awarded at this year’s festival was Martin Žiaran, talented and acclaimed cinematographer who received the fifth annual Film Europe Award for successful presentation of Slovak cinema abroad.

 

By the margin of mere two votes, the Viewers’ Choice Award that is decided by festival-goers was snatched this year by Serbian director Vuk Ršumović for his feature debut, No One’s Child (Ničije dete), followed by German director Dietrich Brüggemann’s Stations of the Cross (Kreuzweg) and Australian director Rolf de Heer’s Charlie’s Country.

 

For the second consecutive year, the film festival was hosted by five venues scattered around Bratislava downtown: two cinemas at Kino Lumière, Kino Mladosť, Kino Nostalgia, FK 35mm at the Film and Television Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts and Batelier, which apart from screening films also hosted the second edition of Danube Art Cargo, a partner cultural festival of BIFF As usual, the film festival’s organisational hinterland was accommodated by Park Inn Danube Hotel.

 

The festival’s programme structure was traditionally dominated by three competitive sections, namely Competition of First and Second Fiction Features, Competition of First and Second Documentary Features and Competition of Short Films, which are dedicated to scouting new talents and introducing future stars of world cinema.

 

The remaining sections brought long-awaited releases by established filmmakers and award-winning titles from prestigious film festivals (Panorama), independent and experimental artworks (Cutting Edge), motion pictures featuring strong human interest stories (Stories – Films of Human Strength) or latest achievements by contemporary Slovak filmmakers (Made in Slovakia). The latter also introduced films by outstanding students from the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica and the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava.

 

The separate Focus section zoomed in on Hong Kong cinema this year, offering not only feature films but also a handful of short films and two parts of a legendary television crime series that are virtually unknown in Slovakia. While it featured many different film genres, the section’s principal theme was reflection on Hong Kongese identity after administration over this tiny territory was handed back to China in 1997.

 

For the second year in a row, the festival’s programme included three finalists nominated for LUX Prize awarded by the European Parliament (Panorama Special). As usual, it also featured Special Event and Tribute sections; the latter was this year dedicated to Theodor Pištěk and Ivan Palúch.

 

Last but not least, the Bratislava film festival presented a plethora of outstanding fiction, documentary and short films in the Out of Competition category; although they did not make it to competitive sections for this reason or another, they received a lot of well-deserved attention from Bratislava festival-goers.

 

This year’s festival program was put together by Serbian film critic Nenad Dukić, Main Programmer of BIFF who put together the Competition of First and Second Fiction Features; Slovak film critic Pavel Smejkal who selected films to the Competition of First and Second Documentary Features as well as to Cutting Edge and Made in Slovakia sections; Czech film journalist Radovan Holub who was responsible for Stories – Films of Human Strength; Dutch art and film historian Erwin Houtenbrink who supervised the Competition of Short Films; and Kristína Aschenbrennerová who put together the Focus: Hong Kong section.

 

Like every year, festival-goers could meet a number of filmmakers who came to Bratislava to present their films, for instance Theodor Pištěk (Amadeus), Giorgi Ovashvili (Corn Island / Simindis Kundzuli), Vuk Ršumović (No One’s Child / Ničije dete), Johanna Moder and Marcel Mohab (High Performance / Mandarinen Lügen Nicht), Li Cheng, George F. Roberson, John Hoff, Felicia Sabartinelli and Alejandra Venancio (Joshua Tree), Bára Kopecká (DK), Meghan O’Hara (In Country), Tomáš Hrubý and Pavla Kubečková (Gottland and The Great Night / Velká noc), David Vigner (Civic hope / Občanská naděje), David Bonneville (Gypsy / Cigano), Marek Marlikowski (Rollercoaster / Granice wytrzymałości), Christopher Presswell, András Forgács and Haider Zafar (Candlestick), Iván Guarnizo (Not All Is Vigil / No todo es vigilia), Ivan Palúch and Radmila Cvorić (It Rains in My Village / Biće skoro propast sveta), Jiří Mádl, Miroslav Šmídmajer and Miroslav Mráz (To See the Sea / Pojedeme k moři), Jaro Vojtek (Children / Deti), Martin Štrba (wave vs. shore / vlna vs.breh), and Pavol Barabáš (Live for Passion / Žiť pre vášeň).

 

Part of this year’s festival programme was a charity screening of Me, Myself and Mum (Les Garçons et Guillaume, à table!), a blockbuster French comedy that clinched four César awards this year including the one for best film. By attending the projection, festival-goers made a donation to Červený nos Clowndoctors, a civic association that focuses on boosting hospitalised patients’ spirit through humour and personal approach and thus improving their overall health condition.

 

Like every year, the Bratislava film festival included an ample portion of side events, for instance a discussion panel at the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica featuring popular Czech actor Jiří Mádl who introduced his debut as a director and screenwriter, To See the Sea (Pojedeme k moři).

 

Part of the festival was also a seminar/workshop entitled Intellectual Property Law in Audio-Vision I; while the seminar focused primarily on gathering theoretical knowledge in select areas of intellectual ownership law, the workshop was rather aimed at mastering practical skills. The popular Slippers Night with Zlatý Bažant, which concluded the entire festival this year, treated tireless film buff to three titbits from its programme, namely Xenia, The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq and Snowpiercer.

 

Apart from screening a solid portion of films, Batelier threw festival fun parties featuring, for instance, Tante Elze, Stroon, Gramophon Brothers or NoMantilens theatre troupe, which premiered its play Výhybka [Points] here. Besides, the club also hosted True Colours, an exhibition dedicated to relativity of our perception, and Home Hammm ChillOut, an overview of design in food and food in design that was designed not only for gourmets.

Dear film fans and supporters of the art of cinema, dear festival visitors, colleagues and friends, With great regret, we must report that the Bratislava International Film Festival will not be held in 2019. Believe us, we were the last ones to want to make this decision, but at the same time, we wanted to
be the first to announce it.

Based on votes cast by the visitors, the Bratislava IFF Viewers’ Choice Award went to Wanuri Kahiu’s second feature film Rafiki (2018) about forbidden love in Kenya.

Awards of the 20th Bratislava IFF 2018

“If you’re lucky enough to make living of something you really love, there is a downside – you don’t do it for fun, it’s a job.”

 

Tomáš Hudák. He studied Film studies (criticism) at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava (VŠMU). He’s a fan of film, music, literature and the art as such. He’s a freelancer, writing film reviews and co-organizing several Slovakian film festivals.

“It’s nice to step out from the bubble of social networks – the binary world of likes/unlikes to be part of the group of totally different people, who are connected only by the skateboards.”

 

Šimon Šafránek. – director, journalist, DJ – multi-genre artist with the sensation of music and word. He’s a freelancer, writing for the Denník N, Hospodářské noviny, Reflex, Magnus etc.

“Films make us better, braver, more romantic and free”

 

Bibiana Ondrejková. A popular theatre and voice actress and presenter. The general public knows her as the Slovak voice of Phoebe Buffay from the TV show Friends. Upon seeing her, viewers will associate her with the Slovak TV series The Defenders (2014), Red Widow (2014), Homicide Old Town (2010) or Block of Flats (2008).

“Actors infuse film with emotion and give it a soul”

Daniel Rihák. A fresh graduate of film directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava under the leadership of prof. Martin Šulík. A director of (so far) student films and a number of commercials. His graduation film The Trip recently won the Best Director and Best Sound awards at the Áčko Student Film Festival.

“All women have the power to change things”

 

Ivana Hucíková belongs to the generation of young Slovak filmmakers. She studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, from which she graduated in 2015 with her film Mothers and Daughters. A Bratislava citizen from Orava, living and creating in Slovakia and the USA. So far, she has made several short documentary films: Into My Life (2018), Connie & Corey (2017) and is currently working on the development of several film projects as their director, producer or editor.

“Cinema is a great medium for sharing common European values”

 

Dominika Jarečná was born in 1999 in Bratislava. She currently studies Theory and History of Arts at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic). She was a member of the Giornate degli Autori jury at this year’s Venice IFF and is a LUX Prize ambassador for the years 2018 and 2019.

Film festival: “It’s a bit like a vacation full of stories”

Alena Sabuchová is a young Slovak author and screenwriter. For her debut collection of short stories Back rooms, Alena was awarded the Ivan Krasko Prize for the best Slovak-language debut as well as the Tatra banka Foundation Young Artist Award in the category of literature. She writes scripts for television and radio, and is currently working on her second book, which will be published next year.

“These films were among the most awarded debut films at this year’s leading festivals”

 

Nenad Dukić. Serbian film critic, who has been collaborating with the team of people preparing The Bratislava International Film Festival for 8 years now. This year (the 20th anniversary of the festival’s existence), he is again the compiler of the Fiction Competition and co-compiler of the section Cinema Now.

The popular section Cinema Now brings an overview of the most remarkable films of the season. Its curators, Nenad Dukid and Tomáš Hudák, have assembled the most interesting movies that have stirred the waters of world’s major festivals. For 20 years, the Bratislava IFF has been supplying the Slovak film public with names, which often become stars of the screen.