15/09/2005

A total of 100 films from 19 countries will screen this year at the 11th Lund International Fantastic Film Festival (September 16-25), with at least 70% of the festival’s programming originating from Europe.
As the Swedish representative of the European Fantastic Film Festival Federation (EFFFF), the goal of Scandinavia’s largest festival for fantastic films has indeed always been to give a predominant space to films from the ‘Old continent’, notably with the Méliès competition arranged in collaboration with the EFFFF and supported by the MEDIA Programme.

The Méliès Awards are organised in two stages by the EFFFF’s nine festival members: first each festival awards its Silver Méliès for Best fantastic feature length and short films, and the following year, the Golden Méliès is awarded by an international jury to the Best European Fantastic Film of the year. And in 2007, the grand Golden Méliès ceremony will take place in Lund.
This year, the five feature films that are competing in Lund for the Silver Méliès are the two UK films The Descent by Neil Marshall and Mirror Mask by Dave Mckean, the Spanish thriller Romasanta by Paco Plaza, Nuit noire [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Olivier Smolders
film profile] by the Belgian Olivier Smolders (see our Focus on the movie/a>) and the science fiction film Ainoa [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by the Austrian Marco Kalantari.

But Lund is also the occasion to celebrate the Masters in the genre, and after Venice and Toronto, Terry Gilliam will be in Southern Sweden to receive Lund’s honorary Finn the Giant Award for "stretching the limits of cinematic imagination." The director of Time Bandits and Brazil will open a complete retrospective of his films in Lund this autumn, organised in conjunction with the Lund University Film Society. And on September 18, Gilliam will also attend the Swedish premiere of his film The Brothers Grimm.

Lund’s other Guest of honour this year will be the Swedish pioneer in animation Per Åhlin who runs Pennfilm Studio, close to Lund. Film classics such as Dunkerklumpen and Voyage to Melonia will screen and a retrospective exhibition with material for his productions will be held at the Festival palace.