27/10/2022 - The works selected for the 28th edition of the Geneva International Film Festival confirm the festival’s desire to reflect the diversity of genres

Anaïs Emery, executive and artistic director of GIFF - Geneva International Film Festival, celebrates the programme of the festival’s 28^th edition (4-13 November), which includes 120 works: 57 films, 32 series and 31 digital projects. Not to mention the many talks: masterclasses, roundtables and conversations as part of the Geneva Digital Market (7-11 November), which this year celebrates its 10th anniversary. The GDM, the sole professional event in Switzerland dedicated to audiovisual innovation, will feature among other events a fascination discussion about the metaverse: "Gamification of cinema: how to shoot your next film in the metaverse?" will welcome as experts Finland’s Laura Olin, chief operating officer and partner at ZOAN; Mikko Kodisoja, founder and CEO of Fireframe Studios; Switzerland’s Baptiste Planche, head of fiction at SRF; and Joe Hunting, British director of We Met in Virtual Reality [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile].

A sort of "headhunter that shows the way", as defined by Anaïs Emery, GIFF proposes every year, alongside its more "classical" competitions, powerful opportunities for reflections on the diversity of genres. For its 28^th edition, the festival offers the audience a chance to discover two major immersive installations: the VR project Evolver, narrated by Cate Blanchett and produced by Edward R. Pressman alongside Terrence Malick, and the immersive play Les aveugles (INVIVO, Julien Dubuc).

Opening this year’s GIFF is the Swiss premiere of the new and highly anticipated season of The Kingdom Exodus [+see also:
series review
trailer
interview: Asta Kamma August
interview: Hubert Toint and Mark Denes…
series profile], from legendary director Lars Von Trier. The closing ceremony will feature a screening of the intimate drama The Whale by Darren Aronofsky, an unflinching portrait of a fragile man. Tributes and honorary awards, meanwhile, will shine a light on strong an atypical figures who, in line with the festival’s spirit, are not afraid to break the rules. The Geneva Award will this year be given to Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn while the Film & Beyond Award will celebrate French actor and producer Alexandre Astier. The brand new section Tales of Swiss Innovation, which focuses on Swiss audiovisual innovation, will centre on the ethical porn production collective OIL Productions (the protagonists in Patrick Muroni’s film Ardente.x.s [+see also:
film review
film profile]).

Standing out among the cinematic highlights of this 28^th edition are the Swiss premieres of Saint Omer [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alice Diop
interview: Kayije Kagame
film profile] from director Alice Diop, which will represent France at the upcoming Oscars ceremony (winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the award for Best Feature Debut at the recent Venice Film Festival); Unrest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cyril Schäublin
film profile], the feature debut from Swiss director Cyril Schäublin (winner of the Best Director award in the Encounters section of the Berlinale, already screened in several festivals including Toronto); and, in the Highlights section, Let's Get Lost [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: François Pirot
film profile] from Belgian filmmaker François Pirot as well as the singular Polish psychological drama The Silent Twins [+see also:
film review
interview: Agnieszka Smoczynska
film profile] by Agnieszka Smoczynska. 

In the TV series categories, we must mention the world premiere of eight-part Portuguese series Thieves Like Us [+see also:
series review
series profile] (André Santos, Marco Leão), as well as the new season of the wild Swiss series Tschugger (David Constantin, Mats Frey), and the world premiere of the first episode from the 23rd season of Midsomer Murders (adapted from the novels of Caroline Graham) featuring the cult figure of Inspector Barnaby (in the POP TV section). On this occasion, the festival has invited the iconic cast of the series, featuring Neil Dudgeon, Nick Hendrix, Fiona Dolman and Annette Badland.

(Translated from French)