23/03/2006

The NAT Film Festival, the biggest international film festival in Denmark – which takes place in every single cinema of Copenhagen from March 24-April 2 and continues from April 4-9 in Aarhus, Odense and Aalborg – is offering as many as 165 films from all over the world for its 17th edition.

The festival will begin and end with two new Danish feature films from upcoming filmmakers, produced as part of the Danish Film Institute’s New Danish Screen (see today’s other news story), to which a one-day seminar is dedicated on March 30. Today’s opening film is Pernille Fischer Christensen’s A Soap [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lars Bredo Rahbek
interview: Pernille Fischer Christensen
film profile], winner of a Silver Bear and a Best First Feature Award in Berlin last month. The delightful romantic comedy about love and transsexuality will be released domestically by Nordisk Film on April 7. The closing night film on April 1 will be Christoffer Boe’s new, ground-breaking Offscreen, produced and distributed by Alphaville Pictures.

This year’s comprehensive programme will be divided into 22 different sections offering the latest creations from France (7 films), the UK (6 films), Germany and Austria (5 films) and Eastern Europe (8 films), among others. Nine feature films will also compete for the TV5 Critics Award, which offers a €3,500 cash prize. Those include 13 (Tzameti) [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fanny Saadi
interview: Gela Babluani
film profile] by Georgian director Gela Babluani (see Focus), Black Brush by Hungary’s Roland Vranik, Daybreak by Iran’s Hamid Rahmanian, In Memory of My Father by US filmmaker Christopher Jaymes, Kekexili: Mountain Patrol by China’s Lu Chuan, Low Profile by Germany’s Christoph Hochhäuster, Look Both Ways by Australia’s Sarah Watt, Lower City by Brazilian director Sergio Machado, and the Belgium film Someone Else’s Happiness [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Fien Troch (see interview).

Another major award, the NATFilm Audience Award, which includes a €17,500 cash prize, will be given to a film with no prior distribution deal for Denmark.