13/01/2023 - The 34th edition of the leading Italian showcase for Central-Eastern European films is unspooling from 21-28 January

The Trieste Film Festival is gathering together fans of Central and Eastern European cinema between 21 and 28 January for its 34th edition. “At the heart of our event,” explains director Nicoletta Romeo, "is a macroscopic area, a genuine hotbed of talent which produces brave, diverse and often unconventional films each and every year, which are sometimes imperfect but always bursting with vitality and courage. A kind of cinema that’s in constant dialogue with reality, analysing and transforming it, and making it universal. What we’re trying to do is to draw up the most exhaustive map possible of an incredibly multifaceted film offering, whether films about love or war, comedies or thrillers, militant documentaries or film essays.”

Nine titles are battling it out in the Feature Film Competition, set to be judged by Weronika Czołnowska, Beatrice Fiorentino and Stefan Ivančić. From Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section come two films, Romania’s Metronom [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alexandru Belc
film profile], which earned Alexandru Belc the Best Director prize, and Ukraine’s Butterfly Vision [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Maksym Nakonechnyi
film profile] by Maksym Nakonečnyj, which tells a story about a prison in the Donbass region. Fucking Bornholm [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Anna Kazejak
film profile] by Anna Kazejak is a caustic Polish comedy, while the meaning of love and life is at the heart of Georgian director George Ovashvili’s Beautiful Helen. An invisible war is fought in Croatian filmmaker Juraj Lerotić’s autobiography Safe Place [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juraj Lerotić
film profile], which won multiple awards at the latest Locarno Film Festival, while Sonne [+see also:
film review
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interview: Kurdwin Ayub
film profile] by Iraqi-Austrian director Kurdwin Ayub was crowned Best First Work at the 2022 Berlinale. The world of female culturalism is central to Gentle [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: László Csuja and Anna Nemes
film profile] by Hungary’s László Csuja and Anna Eszter Nemes, which was presented at Sundance, and Black Stone [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Greek filmmaker Spiros Jacovides is a mockumentary blending black humour and social critique, while one young person’s amnesia in Marko Šantić’s Slovenian movie Wake Me [+see also:
film review
interview: Marko Šantić
film profile] reflects the revisionism characteristic of an entire society.

Added to these are six titles screening out of competition: Italian works The Adventures of Gigi the Law [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alessandro Comodin
film profile] by Alessandro Comodin and Jailbird [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Andrea Magnani, Polish movie Bread and Salt [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Damian Kocur
film profile] by Damian Kocur, Czech title Somewhere Over the Chemtrails [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Adam Koloman Rybanský
film profile] by Adam Koloman Rybanský, and Slovakia’s Victim [+see also:
film review
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interview: Michal Blaško
film profile] by Michal Blaško.

Eleven films feature in the Documentary Competition, meanwhile (judged by Rok Biček, Freddy Olsson and Julia Sinkevych), including Blue/Red/Deport by Lithuania’s Lina Lužytė, Croatian movie Deserters by Damir Markovina, and Latvia’s Sisters in Longing by Elita Kļaviņa, while another six documentaries are set to screen out of competition, including Mariupolis 2 [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Mantas Kvedaravičius, which bagged the title of Best Documentary at the European Film Awards.

The Perfect Number by Krzysztof Zanussi will provide the festival with an opportunity to bestow the Eastern Star Award upon the Polish master, while four Special Events are also on the agenda: Il boemo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Petr Vaclav
film profile] by Petr Václav, which follows the adventures of the eighteenth century composer Josef Mysliveček; L’estate sta finendo – Appunti su Furio, which is the new short film by Laura Samani, who directed the multi-award-winning movie Small Body [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laura Samani
film profile]; Macedonia’s The Happiest Man in the World [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Teona Strugar Mitevska
film profile] by Teona Strugar Mitevska, which earned itself a round of applause in Venice; and Souvenir d’Italie by Giorgio Verdelli, which paints a portrait of musician and showman Lelio Luttazzi.

Divided into three selections, the Short Film Competition will offer up seventeen titles, while several other movies are also set to screen out of competition, including Radu Jude’s new work The Potemkinists. Other sections confirmed for this year are Off the Beaten… Screens, Wild Roses: Women Directors in Europe, and the Corso Salani Prize.

(Translated from Italian)