Trieste: 20 years of Eastern European cinema

by Gabriele Barcaro

14/01/2009 - The Trieste Film Festival is turning 20, an important milestone for this historical Italian event dedicated to Central and Eastern European cinema. This year’s edition (from January 15-22) is richer than ever, in terms of both titles and guests (including masterclass teachers Andrzej Zulawski, Jerzy Stuhr, Dinko Tucaković and Marta Mészáros).

The festival will open with Madonna’s Filth and Wisdom [trailer], her UK-produced directing debut featuring the gypsy punk music of Gogol Bordello.

There are 12 feature films in competition, many from the top international festivals, including, from Cannes, Kornél Mundruczó’s Delta [trailer, film focus], Aida Begić’s Snow [trailer], Sergej Dvortsevoy’s Tulpan [trailer] and Jerzy Skolimowski’s Four Nights With Anna [trailer].

There are also shorts and documentary competitions (among the latter, Citizen Havel [trailer] by Pavel Koutecký and Miroslav Janek), while Unpredictable Associations offers an homage to Polish master filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk, begun last year.

There two other retrospectives: on Triestine filmmaker Giacomo Gentilomo and on films based on or inspired by the life and work of James Joyce, who lived in the city for years (including John Huston’s The Dead and the lesser known Uliisses by Werner Nekes).

New this year is Walls of Sound, a journey into the ways in which music is produced, enjoyed and experienced beyond the large media circuits of Eastern Europe.

The programme is rounded by parallel events such as the complete Wittstock Cycle by German documentary filmmaker Volker Koepp; a Focus on Greek cinema of the last decade, with 16 features and shorts; and staple sidebar Cinema Zones, a showcase of works shot throughout the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region.

(Translated from Italian)