Building cultural bridges through cinema
UK Film- A United Kingdom
The annual European Film Festival, a journey of exchanging and enriching culture through cinema, has reached a milestone this year as the much-awaited festival celebrates its 10th anniversary.
Featuring films from Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, this year’s edition will kick off on October 13 and will last till October 17.
With the aim to promote cultural exchanges between Europe and Sri Lanka and understanding between the people of Sri Lanka and Europe, the festival will showcase 11 critically acclaimed films with daily screenings at 3.30 pm and 6.30 pm at the National Film Corporation theatre in Colombo.
The festival is collaboration between the Delegation of the European Union to Sri Lanka and the Maldives in Colombo and the Embassies of the Czech Republic, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland, the Alliance Francaise de Kotte, the British Council, the Goethe Institute and the Polish Institute in New Delhi. In addition to international films, five short films by young Sri Lankan short filmmakers will also be screened during the festival.
Organised by the European Union Delegation in partnership with the European Cultural Institutions and Diplomatic Missions in Colombo and New Delhi, the festival is curated by Anomaa Rajakaruna.As a partner to the festival, the National Film Corporation provides the screening venue. The films include:
‘A United Kingdom’ directed by Amma Asante revolves around the story of King Seretse Khama of Botswana and how his loving but controversial marriage to a British white woman, Ruth Williams, put his kingdom into political and diplomatic turmoil.
“Two Crowns” directed by Michał Kondrat is the first movie featuring the so far unknown, common facts from the life of Father Maximilian Kolbe, from his childhood up to the heroic decision to sacrifice his own life for a co- prisoner at Auschwitz. The documentary was prepared in Poland, Japan and Italy. The fiction part of the movie presents great Polish actors and actresses: Adam Woronowicz, Cezary Pazura, Maciej Musiał, Antoni Pawlicki, Dominika Figurska, Sławomir Orzechowski, and others. The documentary presents the statements of experts in the life of Father Maximilian: priests and laymen, i.a. Kazimierz Piechowski, who met Father Maximilian during his time at the camp, and the words he told him transferred him and directed spiritually his whole life…
‘Two Lottery Tickets’ directed by Paul Negoesu stars MirceaBanu, Dorian Boguta and Dragos Bucur in the lead.
Poland Film - Two Crowns
Dinel, Sile and Pompiliu are three friends. Dinel is stymied by troubles; hearing his woes, the three friends decide to try their luck in the lotteries. They win the lottery but the money is stolen from Dinel by two thugs.
‘To See the Sea’ narrates around Tomas (12) who gets a camera and begins making a film about his family. He hides a camera in his father’s office and discovers that on Tuesdays and Thursdays his father leaves the house. When confronted, his father denies it. On the pursuit of the great family secret, Tomas reveals the hidden side of Haris, his best friend, who starts using a camera as the only way to get his mum and brother away from his violent father.
Directed by Petra Biondina Volpe Swiss film ‘The Divine Order’, is set in 1971 in Switzerland. Nora is a young housewife and mother who lives with her husband and their two sons in a peaceful little village. Here, in the Swiss countryside, little or nothing is felt of the huge social upheavals that the movement of May 1968 has caused. Nora’s life, too, has been unaffected; she is a retiring, quiet person, well liked by everyone – until she begins to campaign publicly and pugnaciously for women’s right to vote, an issue that will be put before the male voters on February 7th, 1971.
Dutch film ‘Waterboys’ directed by Robert Jan Westdjik won the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2017 for Audience Award and Best International Feature Film
The film tells the funny and moving story of crime novelist Victor and his cello- playing son Zack.
French film ‘Rosalie Blum’ directed by Julien Rappeneau revolves around Vincent Machot who knows his life by heart. He shares between his hairdressing salon, his cousin, his cat, and his too invasive mother. But life sometimes surprises even the most cautious – He meets up with Rosalie Blum, a mysterious and lonely woman, he is convinced to have already met her.
‘HOUSE WITHOUT ROOF’ is about the journey of the siblings LIYA, JAN and ALAN who were born in the Kurdish area of the Iraq and grown up in Germany. The three of them want to fulfill their mother’s last wish to bury her in her home village beside her husband who got killed in the war under the Saddam Hussein regime. On their nerve-wracking Kurdish-odyssey they are not only faced with their Kurdish extended family that does not accept the last wish of their mother but particularly with their own matters.
Multi-awarded ‘Colette’ directed by Milan Cieslar is a story of young lovers and their vigorous determination to escape from a hopeless life condition and exemplifies the power of love under extremely dire conditions.
Filmmaker Marco Turco’s Italian direction ‘L’Oriana’ revolves around one of Italy’s most notorious and divisive journalists and thinkers is brought to rather tame life in the biopic Oriana Fallaci.
‘Before Dawn Stefan Zweig : Farewell to Europe’ directed by Maria Schrader charts the years of exile in the life of the famous Jewish Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, his inner struggle for the “right attitude” toward the events in the war torn Europe, and his search for a new home.
Rosalie Blum - French Film
To see the sea-Czech Republic
Before Dawn Stefan Zweig : Farewell to Europe- German Film