08/06/2010

Traditionally, the Directors’ Fortnight moves to different locations straight after the Cannes Film Festival, including Marseilles, Paris, and even Italy. For the past two years, the Arenberg cinema in Brussels has also hosted the Cannes sidebar.

This rerun will offer Brussels audiences the chance to discover films that made an impact on the Croisette, in avant-premiere. Renowned for its insatiable pioneering talent, the Directors’ Fortnight aims to discover young directors full of promise.

Over the past few years, it has put the spotlight on Belgian cinema in all its forms (Bouli Lanners’s Eldorado [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Joachim Lafosse’s Private Lessons [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jacques-Henri Bronckart
interview: Joachim Lafosse
film profile] in 2008, Felix Van Groeningen’s The Misfortunates [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Felix van Groeningen
film profile] in 2009). Olivier Masset-Depasse’s second feature Illegal [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Olivier Masset-Depasse
film profile] will close this year’s Directors’ Fortnight rerun on June 29.

Besides the prestigious aspect of the event, this rerun will above all satisfy the often frustrated expectations of Belgian film enthusiasts. On average, no more than a third of the films selected in the Directors’ Fortnight are released in Belgian theatres, and often on very small print-runs. Out of the 14 films in this year’s rerun line-up, only three have confirmed releases.

French cinema will be well represented, with four films in the line-up. These films revolve around the bright but sometimes destructive figure of the teenage girl, whether it be the fiery pair in Jean-Paul Civeyrac’s Young Girls in Black [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], the mysterious evanescence of Anna in Katell Quilevéré’s Love Like Poison [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], or the fanciful carefreeness of Lily (Ludivine Sagnier) in Fabienne Berthaud’s Lily Sometimes [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile].

Far removed from this teenage turmoil, Renaud Barret and Florent de la Tullaye explore the streets of Kinshasa to the rhythm of the Congolese rumba of Staff Benda Bilili in Benda Bilili!. Viewers will also get the chance to discover Swiss director Jean-Stéphane Bron’s Cleveland vs Wall Street [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean-Stéphane Bron
film profile], Philip Koch’s Picco [+see also:
film review
interview: Philip Koch
film profile] (Germany), Michelangelo Frammartino’s The Four Times [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michelangelo Frammartino
interview: Savina Neirotti
film profile] (Italy) and Stephen Kijak’s Stones in Exile (United Kingdom). The event will run from June 16-29.