A COFFE WITH… WILD ROSES: WOMEN FILMMAKERS IN EUROPE
THE NEW SECTION “OFF THE BEATEN… SCREENS”
This year the festival presents a focus dedicated to female Polish directors, called “Wild Roses: Women Filmmakers in Europe. Focus on Poland” and to talk to the filmmakers on the program, we have organised A coffee with… to discuss cinema, history, politics and the latest news from one of the most controversial countries in Europe. With the filmmakers will be Marina Fabbri, film critic and expert on Poland, to talk with them about the films in the programme.
Every day at 11:00.
As well as our focus on Poland, this year the Festival presents the new section “Off the Beaten… Screens”, a showcase dedicated to new perspectives and new cinematographic forms. At 14:00 we present the Italian premiere of DOMOVINE (Homelands) by Jelena Maksimović, SRB, 2020, col. & b-w, 63’ Serbo–Croatian – Greek – English o.v., eng. subt.
A woman discovers the mountain village where her grandmother grew up, and from which she fled during the Greek Civil War. Fragments of landscapes, archival images and songs of resistance convey the portrait of a country existing only through ideas of equality and the fight for freedom.
At 16:00 for the 2021 Art&Sound section we have another Italian premiere: ANTIGONA – KAKO SI UPAMO! (Antigone – How Dare We!) by Jani Sever, SLO, 2020, col. & b-w, 87’ English – Slovenian – French – German o.v. eng. subt. A political essay on European democracy today drawn from the writing of Slavoj Žižek. The film brilliantly combines speeches by the philosopher, as well as fictional sequences and archive images, exploring the essence of law and morals in a world of broken-down democracy.
The rest of the evening is dedicated entirely to the Off the Beaten… Screens section, starting again at 18:00 with the Italian premiere of TIPOGRAFIC MAJUSCUL (Uppercase Print) by Radu Jude, RO, 2020, col. & b-w, 128’ Romanian o.v., eng. subt. Ceaușescu is in power, leading a communist Romania. He rewrites official history with the help of national television. Mugur Călinescu, a 16-year-old teenager, writes another story on the walls with chalk. A dialectical and clever editing of archive footage from Romanian TV and a theatrical re-enactment of events by one of Romania’s most attentive directors in the history of his country.
At 20:15 we have the film NOMERY (Numbers) by Oleh Sencov, an Italian premiere in collaboration with Akhtem Seitablaiev, UA – PL – F – CZ, 2020, col., 106’ Ukrainian o.v., eng. subt. The ‘numbers’ live inside a globe, a nonplace: ten figures are practising daily rituals, walking around in circles. An absurd and strict dystopian society which is suddenly disrupted when its leader is overthrown. Written and co-directed by Oleg Sentsov, Russia’s most famous political prisoner, who was incarcerated from 2014 to 2019.
At 22:00 is the day’s final film in the program: ZWYCZAJNY KRAJ (An Ordinary Country) by Tomasz Wolski, PL, 2020, b-w, 51’ Polish o.v., eng. subt. An Ordinary Country is a creative documentary compiled from found footage, based on film and videotapes recorded by officers of the Polish communist security services between the 1960s and 1980s. The film, through archive material and accompanying audio, demonstrates the extent to which the State could infiltrate the private lives of citizens. An Italian premiere.