Fifteen titles in competition at Art Film Fest

by Theodore Schwinke

08/06/2011 - The 19th Art Film Fest International Film Festival has announced its program, including a 15 features in international competition.

Zuzana Liová's Berlinale Forum title The House [trailer] will open the festival June 17. Liová's screenplay won the 2003 Tibor Vichta Award at Art Film Fest as well as the Krzysztof Kieślowski Award at Cannes. “I’m glad to be coming back [to the festival], this time with a finished film,” Liová said. “I deeply appreciate the opportunity to screen it at Art Film Fest. I attend the festival nearly every year, and I never imagined a film of mine would ever open the event.”

European titles dominate the competition. From Central and Eastern Europe come Václav Kadrnka's Forum title Eighty Letters (Czech Republic), Jan Komasa's Suicide Room (Poland) and Marian Crisan's Morgen [trailer] (Romania, Hungary, France).

The competition selection features two films from Austria: Marie Kreutzer's The Fatherless [trailer] and Markus Schleinzer's Michael [trailer]. France likewise has two titles in the running: Céline Sciamma's Tomboy [trailer, film focus] and Roland Edzard's The End of Silence [trailer].

From Sweden comes Jonas Holmström and Jonas Bergergård's Songs of Tomorrow [trailer]; from Turkey, Belma Baş's Zephyr.

Two films are co-productions with non-European partners. Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas Ramírez's Jean Gentil is a co-production between the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Germany. Richard Ayoade's Submarine is a UK-US co-production.

Two competition films come from Russia — Bakur Bakuradze's The Hunter and Alexei Fedorchenko's Silent Souls — and one, Li Hongqi's Winter Vacation, from China.

Slovak filmmaker Juraj Jakubisko will chair the main jury, which also includes Mexican production designer Eugenio Caballero, Israeli director Samuel Maoz, Palm Springs IFF programmer Alissa Simon and Croatian director Živko Zalar.