03/12/2010

The health of European cinema is reflected in the Sundance Film Festival (January 20-30) selection for 2011. Debutant John Michael McDonagh’s The Guard [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: John Michael McDonagh
film profile] – boasting a host of Irish talent including Liam Cunningham (Hunger [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laura Hastings-Smith Rob…
interview: Steve McQueen
film profile], The Wind That Shakes the Barley [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ken Loach
interview: Rebecca O’Brien
film profile]), Fionnula Flanagan (The Invention of Lying), Dominique McElligott (Moon [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), David Wilmot (The Tudors), Rory Keenan (Zonad) and Pat Shortt (Garage [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ed Guiney
interview: Jean-François Deveau
interview: Lenny Abrahamson
film profile]) – will open the World Cinema Dramatic competition.

Europe dominates this strand with Amor Hakkar’s A Few Days of Respite (France/Algeria), Anne Sewitsky’s Happy Happy (Norway), Roberta Torres’ Lost Kisses [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Italy) and Paddy Considine’s Tyrannosaur [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (UK) also in competition.

It’s a similar story in the World Cinema Documentary competition with Jarreth Merz’s An African Election (Switzerland/US), Phil Cox’s The Bengali Detective (UK/US/India), Göran Olsson’s The Black Power Mixtape 1965-75 (Sweden/US), David Sington’s The Flaw (UK), Ali Samadi Ahadi’s The Green Wave (Germany), Ian Palmer’s Knuckle (Ireland/UK), Leonard Retel Helmrich’s Position Among the Stars (Netherlands), James Marsh’s Project Nim (UK) and Asif Kapadia’s Senna (UK), vying for the top prize.

The festival’s Spotlight section features Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Athina Rachel Tsangari
film profile] (Greece), Susanne Bier’s In a Better World [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Denmark), Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (France/Canada) and Richard Ayoade’s Submarine [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (UK).

The Park City at Midnight strand showcases Andre Ovredal’s Troll Hunter (Norway), while the New Frontier section features Lech Majewski’s The Mill and the Cross (Poland/Sweden) and John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses (UK).