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TRIESTE – Some prestigious special events will be marking the opening of the 17th edition of Trieste Film Festival, (19th-26th January 2006, at the Cinema Excelsior (Sala Azzurra), Cinema Ariston and Teatro Miela), by now acknowledged to be the biggest and best Italian festival devoted specifically to the films of Central Eastern Europe and beyond. Organized by Alpe Adria Cinema under the guidance of Annamaria Percavassi, the Festival throws its own special light on the changes that have transformed Europe in the last fifteen years, presenting an in-depth view of the new continent which has emerged from the long war in the Balkans, and which is still witnessing fighting and unease.
On Thursday 16th January the Festival will start at 8.00 p.m. with the film Odgrobadogroba (From Grave to Grave), a Croatian-Slovene coproduction directed by, the Slovene Jan Cvitkovič, the revelation of 2005. The film won first prize at the Cottbus Festival in Germany as well as the award for best young director at San Sebastian and two awards at the Turin Film Festival: Best Film (ex-aequo) and Best Screenplay.
The same evening will see the eagerly awaited Italian premiere of the latest film of director Márta Mészáros, A temetetlen halott (The Unburied, Hungary-Poland-Slovakia 2004), on the life of Imre Nagy. Fifty years on from the Hungarian uprising of 1956, the film tries to throw light on the life of the Hungarian prime minister, starting with the events of 1956 up to his execution, and continuing to the present day. Márta Mészáros, Hungary’s best-known director and one of the most famous women film-makers in the world, will be a guest at the Festival.
This 17th edition of the Festival will also be the occasion for the first retrospective of Silvan Furlan, who died prematurely last April. An insightful critic of Slovene films, dedicated scholar, film librarian, prolific screenwriter and director, he was one of the founders of Alpe Adria Cinema and amongst the most active and tenacious supporters of the Festival from the beginning. “He was a great friend who firmly believed in our Festival: he founded it together with us and was always one of our panel of experts; he would have been pleased that the Slovene feature film which he was in time to see and appreciate has been included in the competition,” observes the artistic director Annamaria Percavassi.
One more special event from Slovenia, a concert by the Srečna mladina, concludes the long inaugural evening of the Festival as part of the section called Immagini, devoted to multimedia productions and organized in collaboration with Bonawentura/MielaNext.
This year there are numerous tributes and special events in addition to those on the opening day. Particularly interesting is Rossellini anno 100, dedicated to Roberto Rossellini on the centenary of his birth, in the presence of his daughter Ingrid, who will be at the festival for a meeting-discussion about her father’s life (Tuesday 24th, 5.30 at the Cinema Ariston). There will be showings of some of Rossellini’s films chosen by his daughter, such as Paisŕ, Francesco giullare di Dio (Francis, God’s Jester), and Viaggio in Italia (Journey to Italy). Trieste’s tribute to Rossellini will include the official presentation of all the initiatives planned by the Fondazione Rossellini in 2006 to celebrate the creator of neo-realism.
One of the most eagerly awaited special events is also the film SOLIDARNOŚĆ, SOLIDARNOŚĆ… (Poland 2005), made to coincide with the twenty fifth anniversary of the founding of the eponymous trade union. The most important Polish directors (including Krzysztof Zanussi, Juliusz Machulski, Andrzej Jakimowski, Jan Jakub Kolski and Piotr Trzaskalski) took part in this production, which celebrates the events of August 1980. Each director contributed a ten-minute film, with one common aim: to show the Solidarność phenomenon, whose unique achievement it was to unify the hearts and minds of 10 million Poles.
The Trieste Film Festival will close with a special Italian preview of Sorstalanság (Fateless. Germany, Great Britain, Hungary 2005), which is the directing début of Lajos Koltai, the internationally renowned film photographer (Being Julia, La leggenda del pianista sull’oceano, (The legend of 1900); he was candidate for an Oscar with Giuseppe Tornatore’s Malena). The film is based on the moving novel about the Holocaust by the 2002 Nobel prizewinner Imre Kertész, who also wrote the screenplay. Sorstalanság will be showing in Italian cinemas from Friday 27th January. Having been presented at the Berlin Film Festival, it is presently a candidate for the European Film Academy Award for Best European Photography and Best European Film Music (composer Ennio Morricone). There will also be the Italian premiere of a ‘behind the scenes’ documentary, Sorstalanság Werk (Sorstalanság behind the scenes), by the Hungarian film critic Klára Muhi, which shows some of the most important stages in the making of the film. Ennio Morricone and Kertés himself make an appearance alon with many others in this interesting documentary.
The fascination of travel and travelling– real or symbolic – and its multiple facets, links a number of the films competing in the three sections of the Festival, feature films, short films and documentaries. What many of the film directors whose works are present at Trieste this year seem to see is an image of Europe in movement: either on a symbolic journey through the changes that have transformed these countries over the last ten years, or on a real journey through a whole region. Some of the best directors also offer a striking reminder of the aftermath of war and the attempts at reconstruction in the Balkans, a region now ignored by Italian and international media.
This year, there are eleven feature films competing, almost all at their first Italian viewing, offering an excellent cross-section of the best Eastern European production of 2005, which won many international awards. One of the most eagerly awaited, a world premiere, is Moartea domnului Lazarescu (The Death of Mr.Lazarescu) by Christi Puiu, winner of the last Cannes Film Festival in the section “Un Certain Regard”. A stark and powerful film, as unforgettable as all those films which deal lucidly and dispassionately with illness and death, it is the first of a planned series of six films set in the outskirts of Bucarest. The festival also offers the first independent production from Kosovo, Kukumi, by the director Isa Qosja, which won the jury’s special award at the last Sarajevo Film Festival. A fény ösvényei (The Ways of Light), is the first work of the Hungarian Attila Mispál: a disturbing, extreme, cruel film, offering a glimmer of hope nevertheless, which won first prize for Best First Film at the last Budapest Cinema Week. First Italian showing also for the latest film by Slovene director Damjan Kozole, no newcomer to the Trieste Film Festival, who in Delo osvobaja (Work Makes Free) deals with some of the problems of unemployment arising from Slovenia’s entry into the European Union. Leidi zi (Mrs. Zi) by the Bulgarian Georgi Djulgerov, which won the Best Film award at the last Sarajevo Film Festival, explores the problem of abandoned children. Six promising young Eastern European directors - Stefan Arsenijević, Nadeja Koseva, Mait Laas, Kornél Mundruczó, Christian Mungiu, and Jasmila Žbanić – have made four short films and a documentary centred around the generation theme, linked together by a cartoon to create one single feature film, Lost and Found. Six Glances of a Generation. Piotr Trzaskalski’s Mistrz (The Master), is set against the backdrop of a bizarre, imaginary Paris, while a small Rumanian village on the Danube delta is the setting for a Swiss Rumanian co-production, Ryna, by Ruxanda Zenide, winner of the special jury award at the Cottbus Film Festival. Another Italian first showing is Schläfer (The Sleeper) the first feature film by Benjamin Heinesberg, who was also present at the last Cannes Film Festival. Social comedy in a particularl ironic vein characterizes the latest work by a Slovak director already known and appreciated by the Triestine public, Martin Šulík, SLUNEČNĺ STÁT aneb hrdinové dělnické třídy (Sun City, or the Heroes of the Working Class). And finally, Stesti (Something Like Happiness) by the Czech Bohdan Sláma, prizewinner at the last Festival of San Sebastian and the Czech Republic’s candidate for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Members of the jury: Andrea Fornari (Italy), Judit Pintér (Hungary) and Jelka Stergel (Slovenia).
Il The International Short Film Competition, Premio Laboratorio Mediterraneo, has nineteen entries shot over the last two years, coming from 13 countries. “The selection was made, as usual, from amongst the best productions of the film and art schools of the geographical areas covered by the Festival,” says Tiziana Finzi, responsible for this section. Two special events in this category, which unite short film directors from various countries, are worthy of note: BALKAN BLUES (Bosnia, Macedonia, Serbia, and Croatia) – a project of Rada Šešić centred around a generation of young directors who are managing to give new life to the cinéma d’auteur – and the series BETWEEN EUROPE AND MIDDLE EAST (France, Belgium and Jordan), a project of Germana Jaulin inspired by “Art visuels 2004,” a competion based on the theme of “encounters” open to young European and Middle Eastern directors. Members of the jury: Lucia Rikaki (Greece), Heinz Hermanns (Germany) and Gloria De Antoni (Italy).
“Premio Alpe Adria Cinema” international documentary competition. This year, after the success of the last edition, Fabrizio Grosoli is once again responsible for the documentary section. “By now, the narrative, ‘literary’ documentary is an internationally recognized phenomenon,” affirms Grosoli. “It’s no longer seen as a form of reporting, but rather as a necessary reflection on the reality in which we live, thanks to stories just as exemplary and fascinating as any work of fiction.”
There are 17 entries, of various formats and length (short medium and long). But there is also a special section: 15 years after the outbreak of the tragic war in ex-Yugoslavia, some exceptional eye-witness accounts will be shown: two Croatian films (with Serbian partiipation), one the definitive reconstruction of the Srebrenica massacre, Izvan razumne sumnje (Beyond All Reasonable Doubt) and the other on the atrocities committed in Lora prison in Split, Lora. svjedočanstva, (Lora. Testimonies), as well as a TV series still in progress, which has already been hailed as one of the most interesting TV events of recent years. Its title is Videoletters, and each episode tells the story of common people once separated by the new physical and mental borders imposed by the war and now reunited thanks to the exchange of “videoletters.” The first six episodes will be shown for the first time in Trieste. Members of the jury: Agnčs Wildenstein (France), Daria Menozzi (Italy), Tibor Kocsis (Hungary).
This year’s Monographic section is dedicated to the German cinema. Update Deutschland, consisting of fifteen films selected by Vincenzo Bugno, takes a look at the German nouvelle vague. Over the last few years, the image of German cinema seems to have changed: new directors like Christian Petzold and Angela Schalenec have gradually gained international recognition. The Festival will give us a chance to discover their work as well as that of others.
Worthy of note is Tribute to the Guermans, a Family Portrait of two important Russian directors, Aleksej Guerman Sr and Aleksej Guerman Jr, father and son, for whom the festival has organized the first ever complete retrospective, including the latest film by Aleksej Guerman Jr, Garpastum, which is competing in this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Another tribute to an unforgettable figure of Eastern European cinema is the retrospective devoted to BOHUMIL HRABAL, Il cinema sul fondo, organized by Francesco Potassio, which concludes a far-reaching project between Trieste and Udine launched in October. Forty years after winning the Oscar for Closely Observed Trains, based on the novel by the Czech writer, director Jiří Menzel, linked to Hrabal for over thirty years by a fruitful artistic collaboration and presently working on the set of I Served the King of England, will be a welcome guest at the Trieste festival.
This year too, the Festival includes the popular section Immagini (Images) (with Bonawentura/ MielaNext), characterized as always by the grouping together in one “container” of the most diverse kinds of visual works, irrespective of format, length or medium. Film, video, shorts, documentaries and docufiction, discussions, music, DJ and VJ sessions, to experience, see and enjoy intense emotions thanks to all that these media can offer for the whole duration of the Festival. The film chosen to open the section is JOHANNA by Kornél Mundruczó (Thursday January 16th at 8.30 p.m., Cinema Excelsior, Sala Azzurra), a film written and conceived as an opera, contemporary and visionary at the same time.
In the context of the well-established meetings between cinema and writing, this year will see a discussion between authors of written and film reports on the subject of travel and adventure at a round table moderated by Paolo Vecchi entitled IL MOLTEPLICE VIAGGIARE (The Many Faces of Travelling), with the participation of directors, writers, screenwriters, journalists and documentary writers, including Davide Ferrario, Massimo Zamboni, Paolo Rumiz, Monika Bulaj.
The section Zone di cinema (Cinema regions), which has always paid special attention to local productions and to Friuli Venezia-Giulia as a setting, is well represented in this edition too. There are eight works, including the five videos chosen by the audience during the recent competition “Anteprima Zone di Cinema,” and two special projects: the Italian premiere of Gloria De Antoni’s latest work, RITORNO AL TAGLIAMENTO (Return to the Tagliamento), with Franco Interlenghi and Antonella Lualdi, set in the places described in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, and La rosa rossa (The Red Rose), by the much-loved director Franco Giraldi. This fine film, one of the best ever shot in Istria, is closely linked to the book Nata in Istria (Born in Istria) written by Anna Maria Mori (published by Rizzoli), which will be presented for the very first time during the Festival, in a meeting with the writer herself, Pierluigi Sabatti, Ariella Reggio, Elvio Guagnini and Marino Vocci (Wednesday 24th January, Caffč degli Specchi, 11.30 a.m.).
This year will see two new official Awards. The first, the CEI Award, will be given by the International Panel of Experts to the film, chosen from among all the feature films, short films and documentaries in competition, produced by one of the countries of the Central European Initiative, which best represents contemporary reality and the dialogue between cultures. The Musicfeel Award gives the winner of the Best Short Film Award the chance to have the music of his or her next sort film produced free of charge by the Musicfeel Studio of Stefano Cretarola and Marco Fedele (www.musicfeel.com).
THIS YEAR’S PRESENTATION CLIP
Fabrica, Benetton’s famous creative workshop, was responsible for the presentation clip of last year’s edition of the festival; this year it is the turn of the Georgian director Basa Potskhisvili who actually took part last year with a short film. The presentation starts with her short film JUST TRY, a two-minute musical in which a little girl in a Russian taylor’s shop, specializing in army uniforms, “just tries” for a moment to reinvent reality by singing and dancing...and what do we get? 20 seconds of colour and music which propel us into the pulsating, vital centre of Eastern European cinema. A crescendo of notes and images leads up to the final shot: the little girl with arms outstretched embraces Trieste, just as Alpe Adria Cinema has succeeded in embracing the contributions to the 17th edition of the Festival, filling with pride and joys those who, like the girl in the mini musical, “just try”...
useful information
accreditation
It is possible to be accredited to the 17th edition of the festival by filling out the appropriate form on the official site: www.triestefilmfestival.it. Accreditation (€20) gives free entry to all the showings and a free copy of the general catalogue of the festival. The opening night is free of charge.
FESTIVAL: TRIESTE FILM FESTIVAL
VENUE TRIESTE, Cinema Excelsior, Teatro Miela, Cinema Ariston
DATES: 19 – 26 January 2006
INFO: Alpe Adria Cinema tel. 040.3476076 via Donadoni 1 (Trieste)
AWARDS: Premio Trieste Best Feature Film (€5,000)
Premio Alpe Adria Cinema Best Documentary (€2,500)
Premio Fondazione Mediterraneo Best Short Film (€2,000)
Premio CEI (Central European Initiative) (€2,500)
Premio Musicfeel
Premio del Pubblico Best Film chosen by the public in each of the 3 sections
MEETINGS: every day the directors, actors and those involved in the festival will meet the public and the press at 12.00 in the Caffč degli Specchi in Piazza Unitŕ. The meetings will be monitored by the writer Roberto Ferrucci.
Press Info: Volpe&Sain Comunicazione +39.040.762667 – 335.6023988
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