08/04/2011

Budapest’s Titanic International Film Festival saw its budget drop by over 30% just two weeks away from the opening of its 18th edition, when the Hungarian State suddenly cut the funding it had been granting since the event’s creation in 1994.

Titanic, the most important international film festival in Hungary, has nonetheless decided to forge ahead by reducing the festival’s length by two days (April 8-16) and by whittling down the programme, the number of invitations and promotional expenses. These drastic decisions haven’t prevented Titanic from offering a high-quality line-up with 52 features spread over ten sections, including zooms on Scandinavian, French and Irish cinema.

Seven titles will screen in international competition, including four European features: Carlos [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by France’s Olivier Assayas, Essential Killing [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jerzy Skolimowski
film profile] by Poland’s Jerzy Skolimowki, Slovakian/Czech co-production The House [+see also:
trailer
interview: Zuzana Liová
film profile] by Zuzana Liová and Savage [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Swedish duo Martin Jern and Emil Larsson.

The French Shoals section will present Gérald Hustache-Mathieu’s Nobody Else But You [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Romain Gavras’s Our Day Will Come [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Fabrice Gobert’s Lights Out [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Fabienne Berthaud’s Lily Sometimes [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Djinn Carrénard’s Donoma [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and David Dusa’s Flowers of Evil [+see also:
trailer
interview: David Dusa
film profile].

The Nordic Lights programme includes six titles, hailing from Sweden (Jesper Ganslandt’s The Ape [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), Finland (Aleksi Salmenperä’s Bad Family [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Olli Saarela’s Priest of Evil [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), Norway (Hans Petter Moland’s A Somewhat Gentle Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hans Petter Moland
film profile]) and Denmark (Kasper Holten’s Juan [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Thomas Vinterberg’s Submarino [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thomas Vinterberg
film profile]).

Irish productions take pride of place in the Green Island section with The Fading Light by Ivan Kavanagh, One Hundred Mornings [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Conor Horgan, Perrier’s Bounty [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Ian Fitzgibbon, Savage [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Brendan Muldowney, Snap by Carmel Winters and Zonad by John and Kieran Carney.

To make audiences shudder, The Dark Side section will show Alan Butterworth’s Brit flick The Drummond Will, The Silence by Germany’s Baran bo Odar, In the Shadows [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Thomas Arslan
film profile] by fellow German director Thomas Arslan and Vampires [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Belgium’s Vincent Lannoo.

Finally, Janus Metz’s Armadillo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Janus Metz, director of Arm…
film profile] will be shown in the documentary section; Romanian director Marian Crisan’s Morgen [+see also:
trailer
film profile] will get a special screening; and Brit helmer Philippa Lowthorpe’s Five Daughters is in the Best of Raindance line-up.

(Translated from French)