23/10/2013 - Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche’s Cannes winner, Blue is the Warmest Colour and UK director Stephen Frears’ Philomena among the 180 features screening between November 6-17

British director Steve McQueen’s historical drama 12 Years a Slave [+see also:
trailer
making of
interview: Michael Fassbender
film profile], about a free black man who is kidnapped from his family in New York and sold into slavery in 1850’s Louisiana, will open the 24^th Stockholm International Film Festival, which runs between November 6-17. Both McQueen’s Hunger [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laura Hastings-Smith Rob…
interview: Steve McQueen
film profile] (2008), about the Irish hunger strike in 1981, and Shame [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (2011), with Michael Fassbender in the lead as a sex addict, were screened in Stockholm, Hunger to win for Best Directorial Debut.

“And the spotlight of this year's festival is freedom – freedom is the common thread running through the entire programme,” said festival director Git Scheynius when she announced the programme in Stockholm yesterday (October 22). “Unfortunately it has proved to be a highly current topic, as our Chinese jury member Ai Weiwei has a travel ban, and Iranian-German director Mohammad Rasoulof, due here with Manuscripts Don’t Burn, hashad his passport confiscated in Iran.”

Tunisian actor-turned director Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue is the Warmest Colour [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Abdellatif Kechiche
film profile], which won both the Palme d’Or and the international critics’ FIPRESCI award at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival, will unspool at the midway gala, while UK director Stephen Frears’ Philomena [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stephen Frears
film profile], starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan in a story of a world-weary political journalist who picks up a story of a woman's search for her son, who was taken away from her decades ago, will close the showcase.

UK director Peter Greenaway, currently a professor in film studies at the European Graduate School in Switzerland, will receive the Stockholm Visionary Award on November 8 at the screening of his The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989). ”Whether men are drowning by numbers, bodies are turned into art or savage nature is transformed into haute cuisine, Greenaway has always challenged the spectator like a true modern visionary – he has indeed created a new cinematic language,” said the jury.