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FESTIVALS Luxembourg

The 5th Luxembourg City Film Festival begins today

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- The line-up includes several Luxembourgian titles, among them Donato Rottuno’s Baby(A)lone

The 5th Luxembourg City Film Festival begins today
Baby(A)lone by Donato Rottuno (©Ricardo Vaz Palma/Iris Prod)

Tim Burton’s Big Eyes is opening tonight the 5th edition of the Luxembourg City Film Festival. Until 9 March, the festival will be hosting a programme displaying ten feature films in competition, a selection of six documentaries vying in a section of their own and, among other sections, a special focus on Luxembourgian co-productions. 

Seven out of the ten titles in competition are European productions, or have been co-produced in a minority regime with Europe: Susanne Bier’s A Second Chance [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Denmark), Syllas TzoumerkasA Blast [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Syllas Tzoumerkas
film profile
]
(Greece, Germany, Netherlands), Eskil Vogt’s Blind [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Eskil Vogt
interview: Eskil Vogt
film profile
]
(Norway), Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s The Lesson [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kristina Grozeva, Petar Val…
interview: Margita Gosheva
film profile
]
(Bulgaria, Greece), Isa Qosja’s Three Windows and a Hanging [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Arben Zharku
interview: Isa Qosja
film profile
]
(Germany, Kosovo), Signe Baumane’s animation film Rocks in my Pockets [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Signe Baumane
film profile
]
(USA, Latvia) and Diego Lerman’s Refugiado [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Argentina, Columbia, France, Poland). The other three non-European titles in competition are Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young (US), Aleksandr Kott’s Test (Russia) and Jafar Panahi’s Golden Bear winner Taxi (Iran). 

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Luxembourgian titles received the main spotlight from the programmers. Not only is the festival wrapping up with a local title, Baby(A)lone [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Donato Rotunno
film profile
]
by Donato Rotunno, but there will also be a whole section called “Made in Luxembourg” - organised in partnership with the Film Fund Luxembourg – that is dedicated to films produced or co-produced by local professionals.

Based on the novel Amok by Tullio Forgiarin, Rotunno’s new film follows two pre-adolescents, who are already familiar with violence, drugs and pornography. Despite their young age they are exposed to them at school on a daily basis. Produced by Iris, the screening of Baby(A)lone at the festival functions as a promotional platform for the film’s local cinema debut, scheduled for the 11th of March.

Other local co-productions include Jean-Louis Schuller and Sean Clark’s Black Harvest [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, an Antevita documentary focused on new extraction techniques, namely hydraulic fracking, and on the people who imigrate to work on it in North Dakota (U.S.); Frank Hoffmann’s and Pol Cruchten’s Les Brigants, a Red Lion production which has recently opened the Max Ophüls Festival; two animation titles - Raul Garcia’s Extraordinary Tales [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and Tomm Moore’s D’Melodie Vum Mie; Bernard Bellefroid’s Montreal winner Melody [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bernard Bellefroid
film profile
]
; and many other short-films.

Events parallel to the Festival include the 9th edition of the European Short Pitch Forum, organised by NISI MASA, a masterclass on Iranian cinema, another masterclass on production design, a workshop on Transmedia and a film criticism workshop with Dutch journalist Boyd van Hoeij.

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