Costa Gavras and European cinema in Lecce
A few years ago, in the small Apuglian town of Altamura, Luca decided to open up a small bakery and make his specialty, focaccias, right next to a brand new 550 square-metre McDonald’s. Slowly, the focaccias forced the US giant out of business.
This true story is told in Nico
Cirasola’s Focaccia Blues [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which will have its premiere at the 10th edition of the European Film Festival, to be held in Lecce from March 31-April 5.
The festival’s full programme this year also focuses on director Ferzan Ozpetek, with a retrospective of his works, and Oscar winner Oscar Costantin Costa Gavras, who will close the festival with along with Riccardo Scamarcio with the screening of his latest film, Eden is West [+see also:
trailer
film profile].
A second national premiere will be of Tonino Zangardi’s noir film Sandrine Nella Pioggia (“Sandrine in the Rain”).
The European Feature Competition features 10 titles, to be chosen by an international jury comprising Karlovy Vary director Eva Zaoralova; film critics Carlo di Carlo and Phillip Bergson; Slovenian producer Dunja Klemenc; and Spanish journalist Carlos Hugo Aztarain.
The competition films are: Dalibor Matanic’s Kino Lika [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Croatia), Arash T. Riahi For a Moment, Freedom [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Austria), Freddy Mas Franqueza’s Awaking From a Dream [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Spain), Ina Weisse’s The Architect [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Germany), Vladimir Kott’s Mukha (Russia); Kristian Levring’s Fear Me Not (Denmark), Christian Angeli’s In the Flesh [+see also:
trailer
interview: Christian Angeli
film profile]) (Italy), Maris Martinsons’ Loss (Lithuania), Róbert Alföldi’s Tranquillity (Hungary) and Christophe Honoré’s La Belle Personne [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (France).
The festival will also host a Bosnian Film Week and numerous contemporary directors from the country; a conference on the relationship between distribution and exhibition, organised by the Apulia Film Commission; and the third edition of the European Parliament’s LUX Award, which consists of creating subtitles for the winning film in the 23 official languages of the European Union, to facilitate the circulation and awareness of European cinema.
(Translated from Italian)
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