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BIFFF 2019

Competitions galore and a Nordic Focus at this year’s BIFFF

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- The bountiful 37th edition of the Brussels-based festival will boast nearly 100 films on its programme, including ten European movies duking it out for the Silver Méliès

Competitions galore and a Nordic Focus at this year’s BIFFF
The Room by Christian Volckman

The 37th Brussels International Fantastic, Fantasy, Thriller and Science Fiction Film Festival will unspool from 9-21 April, and as usual, it will have a jam-packed programme that is sure to delight viewers hungry for genre films that will get their adrenaline pumping (and their blood spurting).

Almost 100 movies will be presented to audiences, including several eagerly awaited titles, such as Hellboy, Greta [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, the new effort by Neil Jordan, starring Isabelle Huppert, and Iron Sky 2: The Coming Race [+see also:
trailer
interview: Timo Vuorensola
film profile
]
by Timo Vuorensola. The International Competition includes just one European flick, Ireland’s Extra Ordinary [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman.

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However, the festival also organises a European Competition, at the end of which a Silver Méliès is handed out. This section includes the Spanish film 7 Reasons to Run Away (from Society) [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Esteve Soler, Gerard Quinto and David Torras, starring a top-notch cast (Sergi Lopez, Lola Dueñas, Emma Suarez and Francesca Orella), and I Am Back [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Luca Miniero (Italy), a loose adaptation of the Timur Vermes novel Look Who’s Back, which imagines what it would be like if Hitler were brought back to life, with the central character here changed to Mussolini. Meanwhile, there is a dictator “based on a true story” featured in Iron Sky 2: The Coming Race (a co-production between Germany, Finland and Belgium). Also battling it out are The Room [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Christian Volckman
film profile
]
by France’s Christian Volckman (France/Luxembourg/Belgium), which is being world-premiered at the gathering, and The Sonata by Andrew Desmond. For a change, a Belgian film will be taking part in the competition and is also set to have its world premiere: Play or Die by Jacques Kluger, an adaptation of a thriller by popular author Frank Thilliez.

As is often the case, Nordic thrillers will take the lion’s share of the selection. There are three of them this year: Finale by Soren Juul Petersen (Denmark), The Unthinkable [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Swedish collective Crazy Pictures (which won three awards at the Gérardmer Fantasy Film Festival) and Zoo by Antonio Tublen (Denmark/Sweden). They will be at the core of the Nordic Focus that has been rustled up by the festival, which aims to shine a spotlight on the sheer vitality of the genre-film industry of the Scandinavian countries.

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(Translated from French)

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