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 [+see also:
trailer
interview: Zuzana Liová
film profile] 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 [+see also:
trailer
interview: Jakub Gierszal - Shooting S…
interview: Jan Komasa
film profile] (Poland) and Marian Crisan's Morgen [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Romania, Hungary, France).

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

From Sweden comes Jonas Holmström and Jonas Bergergård's Songs of Tomorrow [+see also:
trailer
interview: Jonas Holmström, Daniel Wir…
film profile]; 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.