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FESTIVALS Luxembourg

The Luxembourg City Film Festival gets ready for its seventh edition

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- Over 80 films are on the line-up of this rapidly growing festival, the upcoming edition of which will include several international premieres, a tribute to Ray Liotta and a VR Pavilion

The Luxembourg City Film Festival gets ready for its seventh edition
Glory by Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov

The Luxembourg City Film Festival will be back from 2-12 March to celebrate an exciting seventh edition that will bring several international premieres to the Grand Duchy, screening in parallel with a series of activities and events. The festival opens and wraps with two US titles, respectively Mick Jackson’s Denial [+see also:
film review
trailer
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 (also co-produced by the UK) and Terrence Malick’s highly anticipated new film, Song to Song.In between, there will be room for nearly 80 films, including European titles such as the Berlinale’s opening film, Django [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Etienne Comar
film profile
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 by Étienne Comar. The French feature, starring Reda Kateb as jazz legend Django Reinhardt, will screen at the awards ceremony, which will be held on 10 March, two days before the gathering’s official closing. 

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Ten titles have made it into the official competition this year, including five European co-productions. Glory [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Petar Valchanov
interview: Petar Valchanov, Kristina G…
film profile
]
 sees a railroad worker uncover a corruption scandal and fight for his dignity in this Bulgarian-Greek tragicomedy co-directed by Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov. After it screened in the Cannes Critics’ Week and at several other festivals worldwide, Julia Ducournau will also be introducing her feature debut, Raw [+see also:
film review
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interview: Julia Ducournau
film profile
]
, to Luxembourgian genre-film fans. Also on the line-up are Rusudan Glurjidze’s House of Others [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rusudan Glurjidze
interview: Salome Demuria
film profile
]
 (Georgia/Spain/Russia/Croatia), Amanda Kernell’s Sámi Blood [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Amanda Kernell
interview: Lars Lindstrom
film profile
]
(Sweden/Norway/Denmark) and Aki Kaurismäki’s The Other Side of Hope [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Aki Kaurismäki
film profile
]
(Finland/Germany). These five titles will all be competing for the festival’s €10,000 Grand Prix, locking horns with China’s I Am Not Madame Bovary by Feng Xiaogang, Canada’s Nelly by Anne Émond and three US features: Tim Sutton’s Dark Night, Greg Kwedar’s Transpecos and James Gray’s The Lost City of Z.

The documentary competition, whose award is worth €5,000, will present six titles, including Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
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 (France/USA), about US author James Baldwin, Rahul Jain’s Machines [+see also:
trailer
film profile
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 (India/Germany/Finland), Theo Anthony’s Rat Film (USA), Tonislav Hristov’s The Good Postman [+see also:
film review
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film profile
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(Bulgaria/Finland), Keith Maitland’s Tower (USA) and Lise Birk Pedersen’s Tutti a Casa – Power to the People? [+see also:
trailer
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 (Denmark/Norway/Italy).

Luxembourgian (co-)productions will also have a strong presence, including the mid-length film MappaMundi [+see also:
trailer
film profile
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by Bady Minck, which was recently part of the Sundance selection, Barrage [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laura Schroeder
film profile
]
 by Laura Schroeder, starring Isabelle Huppert and seen recently in the Berlinale’s Forum section, the animated title Ethel and Ernest [+see also:
trailer
film profile
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 by Roger MainwoodFils by Cyrus Neshvad and The Past We Live In by Jérôme Weber, among others.

Besides the film selections, the festival will also feature a Virtual Reality Pavilion. Established under the glass roof of the Casino Luxembourg, the event, bringing together several experts, will allow the public to discover around a dozen works for free, through different devices (the Orange VR1, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive). Several panels will take place, including one reflecting on issues surrounding the financing and promotion of virtual-reality creations.

Other parallel events include a tribute to Ray Liotta, which includes a master class by the US actor at the Cinemathèque, and a literary session with best-selling author Douglas Kennedy, who will also introduce a screening of the Billy Wilder classic Double Indemnity.

Supported by the Ministry of Culture and the City of Luxembourg, the festival’s reputation has been growing steadily over the last six years. In 2016, it attracted over 20,000 people – the figure to beat at the upcoming edition.

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