EFA SELECTION 2015 by European Film Awards

European Film Awards

THE 28th EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS EFA SELECTION 2015

Welcome to the 28th European Film Awards CONTENTS: Preface .................................................. Regulations 2015 ................................. Films ...................................................... Index of films ........................................

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European Film Academy e.V. Kurfürstendamm 225 10719 Berlin GERMANY tel. +(49)30 887 167-0 fax +(49)30 887 167-77

EFA Productions gGmbH Kurfürstendamm 225 10719 Berlin GERMANY tel. +(49)30 887 167-0 fax +(49)30 887 167-77

www.europeanfilmacademy.org

www.efa-productions.com

Director: Marion Döring Amtsgericht Charlottenburg 14236 Nz

Managing Directors: Marion Döring, Jürgen Biesinger Amtsgericht Charlottenburg HRB 99369

IMPRINT: EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY e.V. // Editor: Pascal Edelmann // Graphic design: Andrés Castoldi // Unless otherwise indicated, all pictures appear courtesy of the respective production/distribution companies ★

PREFACE

Agnieszka Holland Chairwoman EFA Board

It is with great pride that we present this year’s EFA Selection, the list of films recommended for a nomination for the European Film Awards. Most of the information contained in this year’s catalogue, with details on the different films and filmmakers, is again available on www.europeanfilmawards.eu and, for EFA Members, also on our VOD platform, but we are also glad to offer it as a downloadable PDF. I sincerely hope that you will enjoy reading through it and will find it a good companion to discover the diversity of European cinema. The EFA Selection 2015 includes 52 films representing 36 European countries in 25 languages. They explore the human condition from childhood and first adolescent love to long-term relationship realities and old age, address the struggle for happiness, pains of unemployment and fights for justice, and include a treasure hunt, a club night in Berlin and artificial (love) life. They take us from the marshes of the Guadalquivir river in Andalusia to the Carmel mountain in Haifa and a river island in Georgia. You can follow a pigeon from a painting by Brueghel, a wounded cow in court, a Peruvian bear in London, Icelandic sheep, Danish chicken and a gorilla in love. And that’s only a first glimpse – enjoy discovering! In the 20 countries with the most EFA Members, these members have again voted one national film directly into the selection list. To complete the list, a Selection Committee consisting of the EFA Board and invited experts Dave Calhoun (Time Out, UK), Jonas Holmberg (Göteborg FF, Sweden), Paz Lazaro (Berlinale Panorama, Germany / Spain), Christophe Leparc (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, France), Alik Shpilyuk

(Odessa FF, Ukraine), and Elma Tataragic (Sarajevo FF, Bosnia & Herzegovina) has included further films. Unfortunately, the sensitivity of a film’s release dates is sometimes regarded as commercially or strategically incompatible with awards deadlines by the respective rights holders. This is the case this year with two Cannes winners: DHEEPAN and SON OF SAUL. Of course, these two important films were invited to be in the EFA Selection 2015 but we have to respect the decision of the rights holders. The films in the selection are now made available to the EFA Members by Video on Demand (VOD) and we would like to use this opportunity to thank all the producers, distributors and world sales companies for making their films available to the EFA Members and thus giving all films in the EFA Selection an equal chance. In the light of the total misrepresentation of female voices we would like to especially welcome the eight women represented as directors in this year’s selection - Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Veronika Franz, Tal Granit, Kristina Grozeva, Alanté Kavaïté, Małgorzata Szumowska, Liv Ullmann, Stina Werenfels - and express our hope and belief that they will be joined by many more in the future. In the coming weeks, the over 3,000 members of the European Film Academy will vote for the nominations in the different award categories. The nominations will then be announced on 7 November at the Seville European Film Festival in Spain. The 28th European Film Awards with the presentation of the winners will take place in Berlin on 12 December. We wish you a lot of memorable film experiences!

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

Regulations 2015

Eligibility

Feature films participating in the European Film Awards 2015 must be European* featurelength fiction films intended for normal theatrical release which must have had their first official screening (be it at a festival or at a regular cinema) after 1 July 2014. The EFA Board has the right in exceptional cases to refrain from this rule. The selection of approx. 40-50 films proposed to the EFA Members to be considered for a nomination is made as follows: In the 20 (twenty) European countries with the highest number of EFA Members (as of 15 March 2014) these members vote directly for one film from among the national feature films released in their country or screened at festivals after 1 July 2014. With a minimal voter turnout of 25%, the film having received the highest number of votes in each of these countries will automatically be included in the selection of films, provided it corresponds to the regulations of the European Film Awards. Should the voter turnout be less than 25%, the EFA Board has the right to establish which film shall be added to the selection. the selection of the approx. 20-30 remaining films is made by a committee composed of members of the EFA Board and a group of experts appointed by the Board.

These remaining films are selected from proposals submitted before 15 June by European film institutions, festivals, trade magazines, media partners, members of the European Film Academy, EFA Patrons and producers of European films. As a result, the committee recommends to the EFA Members around 50 films, 20 of them elected directly by EFA Members, the others selected from all proposals received as explained above. The selection of films will be announced in the beginning of September 2015. These films recommended by the committee are made available to the EFA Members for the nomination procedure.

REGULATIONS

Producers of European films whose films are not among the recommended films may – upon payment of a fee – make their films available to the EFA Members by VOD. NEW: DOCUMENTARY SELECTION A committee selects 15 documentaries which are made available as VOD to the EFA Members.

Nomination procedure

There are five nominations in each of the following categories:

EUROPEAN FILM EUROPEAN DIRECTOR EUROPEAN ACTRESS EUROPEAN ACTOR EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER Based on the selection list and the films made available by producers, four of the nominations in each of these categories are voted for by the EFA Members. The EFA Board adds one nomination to each category, irrespective of whether a film was included in the Selection or not. NEW: EUROPEAN DOCUMENTARY (5 films) Based on the Documentary Selection, the EFA Members vote for five nominations in this category.

REGULATIONS

Election of the winners

Based on the nominations, the members of the European Film Academy vote for the winners in the following categories:

EUROPEAN FILM EUROPEAN COMEDY EUROPEAN DOCUMENTARY EUROPEAN DISCOVERY – Prix FIPRESCI EUROPEAN ANIMATED FEATURE FILM EUROPEAN SHORT FILM EUROPEAN DIRECTOR EUROPEAN ACTRESS EUROPEAN ACTOR EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER Based on the selection list and the films made available by producers, a 7-member special awards jury decides on the awards recipients in the following categories:

EUROPEAN CINEMATOGRAPHER – PRIX CARLO DI PALMA EUROPEAN EDITOR EUROPEAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER EUROPEAN COSTUME DESIGNER EUROPEAN COMPOSER EUROPEAN SOUND DESIGNER There shall be no nominations in these categories. * The criteria whereby a film qualifies as European are based upon the European Convention on Cinematographic

All the above nominations will be announced four weeks prior to the European Film Awards Ceremony.

Co-production, Appendix II, issued by the Council of Europe. A short film qualifies as European when the director was born in Europe or is of a European nationality. European, in the sense of the European Film Academy, means

There are additional nominations in each of the following categories:

EUROPEAN COMEDY (3 films) EUROPEAN DISCOVERY – Prix FIPRESCI (5 films) EUROPEAN ANIMATED FEATURE FILM (3 films) These nominations are decided by individual committees and announced after the conclusion of the respective nomination procedure.

geographical Europe, both EU and non-EU, and shall include Israeli and Palestinian

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

13 MINUTES ELSER

DIRECTED BY: Oliver Hirschbiegel WRITTEN BY: Fred Breinersdorfer & Léonie-Claire Breinersdorfer PRODUCED BY: Boris Ausserer, Oliver Schündler & Fred Breinersdorfer DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Judith Kaufmann EDITOR: Alexander Dittner PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Benedikt Herforth & Thomas Stammer COSTUME DESIGNER: Bettina Marx

SOUND DESIGNER: Steffen Graubaum, Srdjan Kurpjel & Christian Bischoff ORIGINAL SCORE: David Holmes MAIN CAST: Christian Friedel (Georg Elser), Katharina Schüttler (Elsa), Burghart Klaußner (Arthur Nebe), Johann von Bülow (Heinrich Müller), Felix Eitner (Hans Eberle), David Zimmerschied (Josef Schurr), Rüdiger Klink (Erich), Cornelia Köndgen (Maria Elser), Lissy Pernthaler (Protokollführerin)

The breath-taking story of a man who nearly would have changed the world. After the takeover of the National Socialists in 1939, Georg Elser, a carpenter from Koenigsbronn, takes the decision to kill Adolf Hitler. A self-made bomb in a famous brew house in Munich misses its target by only 13 minutes. 13 Minutes that could have changed the world’s history and maybe saved the lives of millions of people. Who was this common man who realised the danger of war so early and decided to act while everyone else was following blindly or just keeping silent? Production: Lucky Bird Pictures GmbH Oliver Schündler Grillparzerstr. 3 81675 München GERMANY office@luckybirdpictures.de tel: +49 89 411 88 900

World Sales: Beta Cinema GmbH Dirk Schürhoff Gruenwalder Weg 28d 82041 Oberhaching GERMANY beta@betacinema.com tel: +49 89 673 469 828

Press: Beta Cinema GmbH Dorothee Stoewahse Gruenwalder Weg 28d 82041 Oberhaching GERMANY press@betafilm.com tel: +49 89 673 469 15

SELECTION

Germany 114 min.

elser-derfilm.de

Director’s Statement: I never planned to return to the Third Reich, but Georg Elser and his story are a shameful stain on German history. In 1938 he’s the only one who sees what’s coming – it’s almost clairvoyant. This man is not an intellectual; he’s an uneducated little guy from the countryside. I felt it was important to show how that system, which exercised complete control and subdued any kind of individuality, worked in practice and took over people’s lives. It was suffocating, especially in the countryside, where life is rooted in the idea that everybody helps each other. The minute you refused to raise your arm in the Nazi salute and said you didn’t want anything to do with all that, you were an outsider. In my view Elser was the first resistance fighter we had in Germany. It is safe to say that if he had succeeded, he would have saved at least 45 million lives. It’s a literally inconceivable number. He would have killed not only Hitler but all the other senior figures in the Nazi movement who were sitting around him. What we can learn from Georg Elser today could best be described as civil courage. When does the moment come that you say: “I’m not going along with that anymore: I can’t reconcile it with my conscience”? I was immediately reminded of Edward Snowden. He too could see for several years what was happening in a system that claimed to be democratic: he couldn’t ignore it, and finally he had to get out and pass on the information he had to the general public … even though he knew very well that by doing so he was putting an end to the life he had led until then. He was prepared to accept the very real possibility that from then onwards he would be constantly on the run, facing contempt from people all around the world … and forced to fear for his life on a permanent basis. But he still stood up and said: “This isn’t right!” The inner compulsion that motivated Snowden is very closely linked to the motivation Elser felt. I have been preoccupied with the Third Reich ever since I was able to think in any meaningful way. Back when I was at school, when I attempted to find out as much as I could about the Nazi period, I came across the name of Georg Elser. I found him incredibly interesting, although in those days only a fraction of the information we now have about him was available. Decades later, during my preparations for the film DOWNFALL, I again stumbled across the name of Elser – and straight away I thought to myself: What a thrilling story that would make!

13 MINUTES

Festival Participation/Awards: Berlin IFF Edinburgh IFF Istanbul IFF Moscow IFF Shanghai IFF Valladolid IFF Bavarian Film Awards: Best Production

Oliver Hirschbiegel

Filmography: 2001 DAS EXPERIMENT 2002 MEIN LETZTER FILM 2004 DER UNTERGANG 2005 EIN GANZ GEWÖHNLICHER JUDE 2007 INVASION (THE INVASION) 2009 FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN 2013 DIANA

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

45 YEARS SOUND DESIGNER: Joakim Sundström MAIN CAST: Charlotte Rampling (Kate Mercer), Tom Courtenay (Geoff Mercer), Geraldine James (Lena), Dolly Wells (Charlotte), David Sibley (George), Sam Alexander (Chris the postman), Richard Cunningham (Mr. Watkins), Hannah Chalmers, Camille Ucan (café waitress), Rufus Wright

stills: Agatha. A Nitecka

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Andrew Haigh PRODUCED BY: Tristan Goligher DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Lol Crawley EDITOR: Jonathan Alberts PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Sarah Finlay COSTUME DESIGNER: Suzie Harman

Married for 45 years, without children, Kate and Geoff Mercer are poised to celebrate their wedding anniversary with a party, when Geoff receives a letter that shakes both of them. The letter, from Switzerland, lets him know that a body has been found: that of Katya, his girlfriend before Kate, who died falling into a fissure in a glacier when the couple were on a walking holiday in 1962. Geoff tells Kate that he was regarded as Katya’s next-of-kin, since they had been pretending to be married. Though Kate continues to prepare for the party, and the couple share some romantic excitement about it, she becomes increasingly disturbed by Geoff’s preoccupation with Katya. Geoff begins smoking again; reminisces at length about his carefree time with his previous love; seeks out photographs of her in the attic; and complains bitterly about the way his contemporaries and ex-colleagues have aged. Under Kate’s questioning, he states that he would have married Katya had she lived. While Geoff is at a work lunch, Kate searches the attic and finds slides of Katya, which reveal that she was pregnant at the time of her death. As the celebrations grow closer, they delve further into their past, leaving their future in question. Production: The Bureau Film Company Tristan Goligher 2nd Floor, 42 Glasshouse Street London W1B 5DW UK mail@thebureau.co.uk tel: +44 (0) 20 7439 8257

World Sales: The Match Factory Michael Weber Balthasarstr. 79-81 51670 Köln GERMANY info@matchfactory.de tel: +49 221 539 709-0

SELECTION

UK 94 min. Director’s Statement: There was something heart-breaking to me about the story of a relationship faltering at its final hurdle. It was as if this reminder of the past, this preserved body in the ice, had been waiting for its moment to throw everything into chaos, into a very quiet internal chaos. Through the cracks in the earth come all of those doubts and fears, all of those things unsaid over the years, emotions repressed and kept hidden. It’s as if Kate and Geoff’s whole relationship, from the foundation up, is suddenly called into question by a woman who no longer exists. The original short story was beautifully clear and concise but for the adaptation it needed some expansion. Apart from adding the anniversary party, the biggest change was to lower characters’ ages from mid-80s to late 60s / early 70s. The original time frame meant the story was set in the 1990s and the backstory was during the Second World War. I wanted the story of Kate and Geoff to feel very present-tense. I didn’t want it to be about the choices of an older generation now gone, but a story about the choices we all have to make. I also decided to tell the story solely from Kate’s perspective, which was different from the original story. There are many films and works of fiction that deal with the male existential crisis and I wanted to take a different perspective on the story. Andrew Haigh Andrew Haigh worked as an assistant editor on films such as GLADIATOR and BLACK HAWK DOWN before debuting as a writer/director with the short film OIL. In 2009 he directed his first feature-length film, GREEK PETE which debuted at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and won the Artistic Achievement Award at Outfest. His break-out film, WEEKEND, premiered at the SXSW Film Festival winning the Emerging Visions Audience Award before being released world-wide. It went on to win numerous awards including two British Independent Film Awards and an Evening Standard Award for Best Screenplay. Andrew also won the London Film Critics Award for Best Breakthrough Filmmaker. The film appeared on many ‘best of year’ lists including the New York Times and the film has since received a prestigious Criterion Collection release.

45 YEARS Festival Participation/Awards: Berlin IFF Edinburgh IFF Jeonju IFF Karlovy Vary IFF Shanghai IFF Toronto IFF

Andrew Haigh

Filmography: 2003 OIL, short 2005 MARKINGS, short 2009 GREEK PETE 2011 WEEKEND

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE

EN DUVA SATT PÅ EN GREN OCH FUNDERADE PÅ TILLVARON WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Roy Andersson PRODUCED BY: Pernilla Sandström DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: István Borbás & Gergely Pálos EDITOR: Alexandra Strauss PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Ulf Jonsson, Julia Tegström, Nicklas Nilsson, Sandra Parment & Isabel Sjöstrand COSTUME DESIGNER: Julia Tegström SOUND DESIGNER: Robert Hefter

ORIGINAL SCORE: Gorm Sundberg & Hani Jazzar MAIN CAST: Holger Andersson (Jonathan), Nils Westblom (Sam), Charlotta Larsson (Limping Lotta), Viktor Gyllenberg (King Charles XII), Lotti Törnros (the Flamenco teacher), Jonas Gerholm (the lieutenant colonel), Ola Stensson (the captain/hairdresser), Oscar Salomonsson (the Flamenco dancer), Roger Olsson Likvern (the caretaker)

Like modern times’ Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Sam and Jonathan, two travelling salesmen peddling novelty items, take us on a kaleidoscopic wandering through human destinies. A trip that shows us the beauty of single moments, the pettiness of others, the humour and tragedy that is in us, life’s grandeur as well as the frailty of humanity. Production: Roy Andersson Filmproduktion Johan Carlsson Sibyllegatan 24 11442 Stockholm SWEDEN johan@royandersson.com tel: +46-866 257 00

World Sales & Press: Coproduction Office Olimpia Pont Cháfer 24 rue Lamartine 75009 Paris FRANCE olimpia@coproductionoffice.eu tel: +331 5602 6000

SELECTION

Sweden, France, Germany, Norway 96 min. Director’s Statement: Bruegel the Elder: Among his other Renaissance masterpieces, the sixteenth century Flemish artist painted an exquisite landscape entitled “Hunters in the Snow”. From a snowy hilltop overlooking a small Flemish town, we see villagers skating on a frozen lake in a valley. In the foreground, three hunters and their dogs return from a successful hunt. Above them, perched on the naked branches of a tree, three birds curiously observe the endeavours and pursuits of the people below. Bruegel specialised in detailed landscapes populated by peasants and frequently adopted the sweeping perspective of a bird to tell a story of society and human existence. His oeuvre also contains fantastical allegories of man’s vices and follies, using flawless satire to express the tragic contradictions of being. In his painting, “Hunters in the Snow”, the birds appear to be speculating: “What are the humans doing down there? Why are they so busy?” A PIGEON ON A BRANCH consists of a birds’s panoramic view of the human condition, in which the bird not only reflects on human existence but also worries deeply about it, as I do myself. The pigeon is astonished that humans do not see an approaching apocalypse, though it is in man’s ability to avoid destroying the future for themselves. A PIGEON ON A BRANCH shows the looming apocalypse and offers the possibility to believe in our capacity to avoid it. Roy Andersson Born in Gothenburg in 1943. Trained as a film director at the Swedish Film Institute’s Film School in Stockholm at the end of the 1960s, Roy Andersson made his feature-length ﬁlm debut in 1970 with A SWEDISH LOVE STORY, followed by GILIAP in 1975. After this, he made numerous award-winning advertising films and, in 1989, the unfinished AIDS film SOMETHING HAPPENED. In 1991 he started the Gothenburg Film Festival’s relay film project ‘90 minuter 90-tal’ with the short WORLD OF GLORY. He is the co-editor of the anthology “Successful Freezing of Mr. Moro” (1992), contributing editor of the exhibition “Sweden and the Holocaust” (since 2009), honorary doctor at the University of Gothenburg and honorary chairman of the Gothenburg International Film Festival (since 2009). With the multiple award-winning SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (2000), Roy returned to the featurelength film format. The next film, YOU, THE LIVING, premiered in Cannes in 2007.

www.royandersson.com/pigeon/

A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE Festival Participation/Awards: BAFICI Buenos Aires Bogota FF Busan IFF Goa IFF of India Hong Kong IFF Jerusalem IFF São Paulo IFF Seville European FF Thessaloniki IFF Tokyo IFF Toronto IFF Venice IFF: Golden Lion

Roy Andersson

Filmography: 1970 A SWEDISH LOVE STORY 1975 GILIAP 1989 SOMETHING HAPPENED 1991 WORLD OF GLORY 2000 SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR 2007 YOU, THE LIVING

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

AFERIM! ORIGINAL SCORE: Trei Parale MAIN CAST: Teodor Corban (Costandin), Mihai Comanoiu (Ionita), Cuzin Toma (Carfin), Alexandru Dabija (Boyar Iordache Cindescu), Alexandru Bindea (the priest), Luminita Gheorghiu (craftsman’s wife), Victor Rebengiuc (craftsman), Alberto Dinache (Tintiric), Mihaela Sirbu (Sultana), Adina Cristescu (Zambila), Serban Pavlu (traveller at the Inn), Gabriel Spahiu (Vasile), Dan Nicolaescu (merchant), Liviu Ornea (abbot)

photos: Silviu Ghetie

DIRECTED BY: Radu Jude WRITTEN BY: Radu Jude, Florin Lazarescu PRODUCED BY: Ada Solomon, Rossitsa Valkanova, Jiri Konecny, Ovidiu Sandor DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Marius Panduru EDITOR: Catalin Cristutiu PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Augustina Stanciu COSTUME DESIGNER: Dana Paparuz SOUND DESIGNER: Dana Lucretia Bunescu

In 19th century Romania, Costandin, a policeman of the time, and his son travel through the country in search of a fugitive Gypsy slave. Production: Hi Film Productions Ada Solomon 23 Constantin Bosianu Street 040505 Bucharest ROMANIA office@hifilm.ro tel: +40 21 252 48

World Sales & Press: Beta Cinema Thorsten Ritter Gruenwalder Weg 28d 82041 Oberhaching GERMANY thorsten.ritter@betacinema.com tel: +49 | 89 | 673469 - 14

Press: Hi Film Productions Catalin Anchidin 23 Constantin Bosianu Street 040505 Bucharest ROMANIA catalin.anchidin@gmail.com tel: +40 746 499 94

SELECTION

Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic 105 min. Director’s Statement: I don’t know which psychologist said that a person is mentally healthy only if they know where they come from, where they are and where they want to go. I believe this applies to societies too, not only individuals. The Romanian society will not be truly healthy until it faces its past with honesty and lucidity – be it the recent or the remote past. The movie AFERIM! is an attempt to gaze into the past, to take a journey inside the mentalities of the beginning of the 19th century – all epistemological imperfections inherent to such an enterprise included. It is obvious that such an effort would be pointless should we not believe that this hazy past holds the explanation for certain present issues. “We research each period firstly for the promises they contain for the following period” says Johan Huizinga. More than anything, I want this film to be a stimulus that makes the audience question in a deeper and more systematic way the issues I was only able to bring up.

www.facebook.com/aferimfilm

AFERIM!

Festival Participation/Awards: Berlin IFF: Silver Bear for Best Director Hong Kong IFF IndieLisboa: Grand Prize City of Lisbon, Canais TVCine & Séries Award Int’l Antalya Golden Orange FF Karlovy Vary IFF Melbourne IFF Sarajevo FF Shanghai IFF Radu Jude Sofia IFF: Special Mention Born in 1977, Radu Jude graduated from the filmmaking de- Sydney FF partment of the Media University in 2003 and worked as an Transilvania IFF (Cluj) assistant director. Tribeca FF He directed a series of short films, among them THE TUBE Vilnius IFF WITH A HAT (2006) and ALEXANDRA (2007). His debut feature film, THE HAPPIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD Radu Jude (2009), was awarded the CICAE prize in the Berlinale Forum and selected for more than 50 film festivals. In 2011, he directed and produced the independent feature A FILM FOR FRIENDS. EVERYBODY IN OUR FAMILY (2012), his second feature film which premiered in the Berlinale Forum, received the Heart of Sarajevo FF Award and was selected for more than 30 film festivals around the world. His two recent short films SHADOW OF A CLOUD (2013) and IT CAN PASS THROUGH THE WALL (2014) were selected in Cannes - Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. He is currently in pre-production with the feature film Filmography: SCARRED HEARTS, an adaptation of Max Blecher’s novel. 2006 THE TUBE WITH A HAT, short 2007 ALEXANDRA, short 2009 THE HAPPIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD 2011 A FILM FOR FRIENDS 2013 EVERYBODY IN OUR FAMILY 2013 SHADOW OF A CLOUD, short 2014 IT CAN PASS THROUGH THE WALL, short

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

AFTERTHOUGHT HAYORED LEMA’ALA

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Elad Keidan PRODUCED BY: Elie Meirovitz, Eitan Mansuri DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Yaron Scharf EDITOR: Arik Lahav-Leibovitch PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Dina Kornveits

COSTUME DESIGNER: Keren Eyal-Melamed ORIGINAL SCORE: Thierry Caroubi SOUND DESIGNER: Aviv Aldema, Vitaliy Grinshpun & Jean-Yves Rousseaux MAIN CAST: Itay Tiran (Uri), Uri Klauzner (Moshe)

Haifa on a sunny day. Moshe is a crumbling man walking up the Carmel Mountain on yet another work day. Will this day mark his collapse? Uri walks down the mountain to board a ship and leave behind all the things he loves and despises. His sense of belonging is losing ground. He is likely to miss his military reserve service-call, thus risking jail. Will the two collide or pass through one another? An existential comedy, where the overbearing mountain with its endless stairs takes control over destinies in this unique panorama of the Mediterranean port city. Production: EZ Films 14 rue Mandar 75002 Paris FRANCE ray@ez-films.com tel: +33 6 82 47 34 20

Spiro Films c/o The Match Factory Balthasarstr. 79-81 50670 Köln GERMANY ellen@spirofilms.com tel: +972 52 858 3323

World Sales: The Match Factory GmbH Balthasarstr. 79-81 50670 Köln GERMANY info@matchfactory.de tel: +49 221 539 709-0

Press: Alibi Communications Brigitta Portier Bergstraat 158 3010 Kessel Lo BELGIUM brigittaportier@ alibicommunications.be tel: +33 6 28 96 81 65

SELECTION

Israel, France 105 min. Director’s Statement: Walking is a big part of my life, giving me a sense of freedom. Born in Haifa, I‘ve often walked up and down Mount Carmel and I‘ve always wanted to tell a story that would encompass the whole city, top-to-bottom. From the old lower parts through layers of socialism in the middle and up to capitalist squeaking efforts at the peak. Another part of this exploration was the textural quality of human surroundings, exploding with meaning and stories while at the same time lonely and dull. It was Heraclitus who said ”The most beautiful world is like a heap of rubble tossed down in confusion”. For me it sounds like Heraclitus was living in modern Israel where the urge to build and run over previous histories turns reality into, well, a heap of rubble. My hometown of Haifa was a very distinct socialist city with modernist style tenement housing, naïve folk dancing and an unusual quota of nature allotted for the blue collar workers and their neighbourhoods. One day the Berlin Wall fell. And strangely, even though we were part of the “West“, change came. Cooked up and watered down American dreams for second rate nations were quickly taking over what was the social bedrock of our identity. Shopping centres, cable TV, tower housing sprouting everywhere. It happened very naturally. Our parents themselves were already cynical about social ideas, increasingly sanctifying personal gain and individual interests. The old mountain side of Haifa was a barometer of the old value system turning hollow. It‘s like a dried up lizard from a different geological age. Capturing it before it‘s lost forever was also one of my aims. The dream to emigrate is a mutual dream of many in conflict ridden areas. Uri, my young protagonist, a hazy poet and thinker, is on his way to flee the country. He‘s evading military reserve service, cutting all strings behind him. His story identifies that ephemeral thing which makes us belong to a place. Contrary to Uri, who always seems to have the last retort, my second protagonist, Moshe, is a crumbling man who starts his day only to find his life flipping upside down. His story will lead him to be at a loss for words but perhaps also grant him new hope. With their stories I‘ve examined subjects such as loyalty, betrayal and human bondage. In a way, my protagonists are an allegory of the country I live in – unable to choose a path, even though the ground keeps rolling under its feet. Elad Keidan Elad Keidan is an Israeli filmmaker, writer and director.

AFTERTHOUGHT Festival Participation/Awards: Cannes IFF Warsaw FF

Elad Keidan

Filmography: 2008 ANTHEM, short 2012 AND ON HE WALKS, short

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

ARABIAN NIGHTS - VOLUME I-III AS MIL E UMA NOITES - VOLUME I-III DIRECTED BY: Miguel Gomes WRITTEN BY: Miguel Gomes, Mariana Ricardo, Telmo Churro PRODUCED BY: Luís Urbano DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom EDITOR: Telmo Churro

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Silvia Grabowski COSTUME DESIGNER: Silvia Grabowski, Lucha D’Orey SOUND DESIGNER: Vasco Pimentel MAIN CAST: Crista Alfaiate, Luísa Cruz, Américo Silva, Adriano Luz, Chico Chapas, Rogério Samora

VOL 1: THE RESTLESS ONE In which Scheherazade tells of the restlessness that befell the country: “It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that in a sad country among all countries, where people dream of mermaids and whales, and unemployment is spreading. In certain places, forests burn into the night despite the falling rain; men and women long to set out to sea in the middle of winter. Sometimes there are animals that talk although it is highly improbable that they are listened to. In this country, where things are not what they appear to be, men of power promenade on camels and hide permanent and shameful erections; they await the moment when taxes are collected so they can pay a certain wizard whom...” And seeing the morning break, Scheherazade fell silent. VOL II: THE DESOLATE ONE In which Scheherazade tells of how desolation invaded men: “It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that a distressed judge will cry instead of giving out her sentence on a night when all three moons are aligned. A runaway murderer will wander through the land for over forty days and will teletransport himself to escape the Police while dreaming of prostitutes and partridges. A wounded cow will reminisce about a thousand-year-old olive tree while saying what she must say, which will sound none less than sad! The residents of a tower block in the suburbs will save parrots and piss inside lifts while surrounded by dead people and ghosts; including in fact a dog that...”. And seeing the morning break, Scheherazade fell silent. Production: O Som e a Fúria Av. Almirante Reis, 113 – 5º, Esc. 505 1150-014 Lisboa PORTUGAL geral@osomeafuria.com tel: +351 213 582 518

Shellac Sud / AGAT Friche La Belle de Mai - 41 rue Jobin 13003 Marseille FRANCE contact@shellac-altern.org tel: +33 4 95 04 95 92

Komplizen Film GmbH Hagelberger Str. 57 10965 Berlin GERMANY info@komplizenfilm.de tel: +49 30 78893340

SELECTION

Portugal, Germany, France, Switzerland 383 min. — “Damned tales! If things continue this way my daughter will surely end up with her throat slit!” — the Grand-Vizier, Scheherazade’s father, thinks in his palace in Baghdad. VOL III: THE ENCHANTED ONE In which Scheherazade doubts that she will still be able to tell stories to please the King, given that what she has to tell weighs three thousand tons. She therefore escapes from the palace and travels the kingdom in search of pleasure and enchantment. Her father, the Grand-Vizier, arranges to meet her at the ferris wheel and Scheherazade resumes her narration: “O auspicious King, in old shanty towns of Lisbon there was a community of bewitched men who, with all dedication and passion, devoted themselves to teaching birds to sing...”. And seeing the morning break, Scheherazade fell silent.

ARABIAN NIGHTS - VOL. I-III Festival Participation/Awards: Cannes IFF Karlovy Vary IFF Melbourne IFF Sydney FF Thessaloniki IFF Toronto IFF

Director’s Statement: In this film, we intend to do two things simultaneously: 1) to Miguel Gomes take up the delirious fictional spirit of the ‘Arabian Nights’ and especially reaffirm, through this and with this the bond that unites the King and Scheherazade (the imperious need for stories), and 2) to outline a portrait or chronicle of Portugal during a whole year (at a time when the country is subject to the effects of ‘austerity measures’ created by the Troika’s financial aid package). Fiction and social portrait, flying carpets and strikes. These are two dimensions that are apparently unrelated or that we have grown used to arrange in different boxes, as it were. But imagination and reality have never been able to exist without each other (and Scheherazade knows this well). Filmography: 2000 THE FACE YOU DESERVE Miguel Gomes 2008 OUR BELOVED MONTH OF AUGUST Miguel Gomes was born in Lisbon in 1972. He studied cin- 2012 TABU ema and worked as a film critic for the Portuguese press until the year 2000. Miguel has directed several short films and made his first feature THE FACE YOU DESERVE in 2000. OUR BELOVED MONTH OF AUGUST (2008) and TABU (2012) came to confirm his success and international recognition. TABU screened in Berlinale’s Competition, where it won the Alfred Bauer and FIPRESCI award; the movie was sold to over 50 countries and won dozens of awards. Retrospectives of Miguel’s work have been programmed at the Viennale, the BAFICI, the Torino Film Festival, in Germany and in the USA. REDEMPTION, his most recent short film, premiered in 2013 at the Venice FF.

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

BABAI PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Jutta Freyer COSTUME DESIGNER: Genoveva Kylburg SOUND DESIGNER: Malte Bieler ORIGINAL SCORE: Benedikt Schiefer MAIN CAST: Astrit Kabashi (Gezim), Val Maloku (Nori)

stills: Matteo Cocco

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Visar Morina PRODUCED BY: Nicole Gerhards, Visar Krusha, Tomi Salkovski & Xénia Maingot DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Matteo Cocco EDITOR: Stefan Stabenow

Ten-year-old Nori and his father Gezim earn their living by selling cigarettes in pre-war Kosovo of the 90s. Gezim will hear nothing of Nori’s mother. He is an expert at escaping the past and now he wants to flee Kosovo, without Nori. But the boy tries everything in his Production: NiKo Film Nicole Gerhards Prinzessinnenstraße 16 10969 Berlin GERMANY info@nikofilm.de tel: +49 30 27 58 28 36

World Sales: Heretic Outreach Ioanna Stais Promitheos 18 15234 Athens GREECE info@heretic.gr tel: +30 210 6005 260

SELECTION

Germany, Kosovo, FYR Macedonia, France 102 min.

BABAI

Festival Participation/Awards: Karlovy Vary IFF: Best Director Molodist Kyiv IFF means to prevent his dad from leaving. An accident results. The shocked father takes Nori to the hospital. When Nori gets out, his father is simply gone. Angry, yet determined, Nori sets out on a perilous journey to find his father and indeed finds him in Germany. With the persistence only a child can have, he confronts his father and cannot forgive him for his desertion. Director’s Statement: BABAI depicts a pre-war atmosphere in which people become the playthings of abstruse political powers. They sit, a bomb beneath their asses, and talk about the weather. It is precisely this feeling and its naturalness that I want to capture - without comment or condescension. The film’s core is Nori’s personal story. I imagine the figure of the father as a centre point around which Nori revolves and through which Nori is introduced to life. His absolute trust is destroyed when the father leaves. From Nori’s perspective there is nothing that would justify this separation. Nori fights against it with all his strength. His behaviour is an attempt to maintain his own innocence. The pain he feels from separation is less due to the fact that he has to live without a father and more that he must live without trust. Visar Morina Visar Morina was born in 1979 in Prishtina, Kosovo. In 2009, he graduated from the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany, with the film DEATH BY SUFFOCATION. This award-winning short premiered at the Max Ophüls Prize and was broadcast by ARTE TV. His last short OF DOGS AND WALLPAPER had its premiere in international competition at the Locarno FF in 2013, and was nominated for the German Short Film Award 2014. BABAI is his first feature.

Visar Morina

Filmography: 2008 SIRENS, short 2010 DEATH BY SUFFOCATION, short 2013 OF DOGS AND WALLPAPER, short

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

BLACK SOULS ANIME NERE

COSTUME DESIGNER: Marina Roberti SOUND DESIGNER: Stefano Campus ORIGINAL SCORE: Giuliano Taviani MAIN CAST: Marco Leonardi (Luigi), Peppino Mazzotta (Rocco), Fabrizio Ferracane (Luciano)

stills: Francesca Casciarri

DIRECTED BY: Francesco Munzi WRITTEN BY: Francesco Munzi, Maurizio Braucci PRODUCED BY: Fabrizio Ruggirello DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Vladan Radovic EDITOR: Cristiano Travaglioli PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Luca Servino

In a place where blood ties and vendetta still hold sway, this tale of a Calabrian criminal family unfolds. The story starts in Holland and takes us to Milan, before finally arriving in Calabria among the peaks of Aspromonte where it all began, and where it will all end. ANIME NERE is the story of three brothers – the sons of shepherds with ties to the ‘ndrangheta – and their divided souls. Luigi, the youngest, is an international drug dealer. Rocco, Milanese by adoption, is to all appearances a middle-class businessman, thanks to his cousin’s ill-gotten gains. Luciano, the eldest, harbours a pathological fantasy of preindustrial Calabria and engages in lonely, melancholy dialogue with the dead. His twentyyear-old son Leo belongs to the lost generation, who have no identity. The only thing Leo has inherited from his ancestors is resentment and for him, the future is a train that has already left the station. After a trivial argument, he carries out an act of intimidation against a bar Production: Cinemaundici Luigi Musini Viale Tunisia 36 20124 Milano ITALY luigi.musini@cinemaundici.it tel: +39 (0) 6 45478610

World Sales: Rai Com Catia Rossi Via Umberto Novaro 18 00195 Roma ITALY catia.rossi@rai.it tel: +39(0)633178244

SELECTION

Italy, France 103 min. protected by a rival clan. Anywhere else, it would have been dismissed as nothing more than youthful foolishness. But not in Calabria, and especially not in Aspromonte. Instead, it is the spark that lights the fire. For Luciano, it is a return to the drama many years after the murder of his father. In a dimension suspended between the distant past and modern life, the characters are driven towards the archetypes of tragedy. Director’s Statement: I made this film in a town that legal professionals and journalists stigmatise as one of the most mafia-ridden places in Italy, one of the nerve centres of the Calabrian ‘ndrangheta: Africo. Africo, in the province of Reggio Calabria, on the Ionic coast: the sea is beautiful there, unknown to tourists, and behind it rise up some of the most beautiful, untamed mountains in Italy – the Aspromonte. In between, the landscape is marked by the anarchic building developments so indicative of the south of Italy, and of the mistreatment of Italy. When I said I wanted to make the film there, everyone tried to discourage me: it’s too difficult, it’s inaccessible, it’s too dangerous. It was an impossible film. I sought help from Gioacchino Criaco, author of “Anime Nere”, the book on which the film is loosely based. I arrived in Calabria full of prejudice and fear. I discovered a very complex and diverse reality. I saw mistrust turn into curiosity, and people opened their doors to us. I mixed my actors with the residents of Africo, who acted and worked with the cast. Without them, this film would have been poorer. Africo has a very tough history of criminality, but it can help us understand many things about our country. From Africo, we have a better view of Italy.

BLACK SOULS

Festival Participation/Awards: São Paulo IFF 9 David di Donatello Awards: Best Film, Director, Screenwriter, Producer, DOP, Sound Design, Editor, Composer, Song.

Francesco Munzi

Francesco Munzi Francesco Munzi was born in Rome in 1969. He graduated in Political Science and in 1998 he obtained a diploma in directing from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. In 2004 he released his first feature film, SAIMIR. The film participated in the 61st Venice FF, where it received a special men- Filmography: tion in the debut feature film category. The film was then 2004 SAIMIR presented at film festivals all over the world to great critical 2008 IL RESTO DELLA NOTTE acclaim, winning awards including the Nastro d’Argento for Best New Director. Munzi’s second feature film, IL RESTO DELLA NOTTE (2008), was presented at the Cannes FF’s Directors’ Fortnight. It was then taken to numerous other international festivals.

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

BODY CIAŁO

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Elwira Pluta COSTUME DESIGNER: Katarzyna Lewinska & Julia Jarza-Brataniec SOUND DESIGNER: Marcin Jachyra MAIN CAST: Janusz Gajos (the Prosecutor), Maja Ostaszewska (Anna), Justyna Suwala (Olga)

stills: Jacek Drygala, portrait: Jacek Poremba

DIRECTED BY: Małgorzata Szumowska WRITTEN BY: Małgorzata Szumowska & Michal Englert PRODUCED BY: Jacek Drosio, Małgorzata Szumowska & Michal Englert DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Michal Englert EDITOR: Jacek Drosio

Poland, nowadays. The intertwined stories of a criminal prosecutor, his anorexic daughter and her therapist who claims she can communicate with the dead loved ones. Three radically different approaches to the body and soul. Production: Nowhere ul. Narbutta 27/4 02-536 Warszawa POLAND nowhere@nowherefilm.pl tel: +48 500 892 253

World Sales: Memento Films International 9 cité Paradis 75010 Paris FRANCE sales@memento-films.com tel: +33 1 53 34 90 20

SELECTION

Poland 90 min.

BODY

Festival Participation/Awards: Berlin IFF: Silver Bear for Best Director BFI London FF Brussels FF: jury award Busan IFF Cartagena IFF Espoo Ciné goEast Wiesbaden Hong Kong IFF Istanbul IFF Karlovy Vary IFF Melbourne IFF Midnight Sun FF Odessa IFF Sofia IFF Toronto IFF Małgorzata Szumowska Małgorzata Szumowska belongs to the most prominent Pol- Vilnius IFF: Best Actor ish filmmakers and covers a broad spectrum working as screenwriter and producer as well as documentary and fea- Małgorzata Szumowska ture film director. She has been honoured with several international awards, including the Teddy Award for IN THE NAME OF at the Berlin IFF and the Silver Leopard Award at the Locarno FF for 33 SCENES FROM LIFE. Małgorzata Szumowska was twice nominated for the European Film Awards, for HAPPY MAN (2001) and for STRANGER (2005). She is a winner of many prestigious prizes in Poland. Her movie ELLES, featuring Juliette Binoche and Anaïs Demoustier, was sold to over 40 countries.

Filmography: 2001 HAPPY MAN 2005 STRANGER 2009 33 SCENES FROM LIFE 2011 ELLES 2013 IN THE NAME OF

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

CORN ISLAND SIMINDIS KUNDZULI

DIRECTED BY: George Ovashvili WRITTEN BY: George Ovashvili, Roelof-Jan Minneboo & Nugzar Shataidze PRODUCED BY: Nino Devdariani, Eike Goreczka, Guillaume de Seille, Karla Stojakova, Sain Gabdullin, Gabor Ferenczy DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Elemér Ragályi EDITOR: Kim Sun-Min

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Ariunsaichan Dawaachu COSTUME DESIGNER: Ivana Axmanova SOUND DESIGNER: Frédéric Théry ORIGINAL SCORE: Josef Bardanashvili MAIN CAST: Ilyas Salman (old man), Mariam Buturishvili (young girl), Tamer Levent (officer), Irakli Samushia (soldier)

The Enguri river forms the border between Georgia and the breakaway republic of Abkhazia. Tensions between the two nations have not abated since the war of 1992–93. Every spring the river brings fertile soil from the Caucasus down to the plains of Abkhazia and northwestern Georgia, creating tiny islands: small clusters of no man’s land. The islands are havens for wildlife but occasionally also for man. Our story begins when an old Abkhaz farmer sets foot on one of the islands. The old man builds a hut for himself and his teenage granddaughter, he ploughs the earth and together they sow corn. As his granddaughter blossoms into womanhood and the corn ripens, the old man is confronted by the inescapable cycle of life. Production: 42film GmbH Eike Goreczka Geiststr. 49 06108 Halle GERMANY goreczka@42film.de tel: +49 3454 781 848

World Sales: Arizona Distribution 5, Boulevard Barbès 75018 Paris FRANCE contact@arizonafilms.net tel: +33 9 54 52 55 72

SELECTION

Georgia, Germany, Kazakhstan, Czech Republic, France, Hungary 100 min.

CORN ISLAND

Festival Participation/Awards: Karlovy Vary IFF: Crystal Globe 2014 Palm Springs FF: Bridging the Borders Award

George Ovashvili The director and screenwriter from Tbilisi, Georgia, graduated in 1996 from the film department of the Georgian State Oscar-shortlisted for Best ForeignInstitute of Cinema. Thanks to a prize at the Berlinale for his Language Film 2015. short film EYE LEVEL in 2005 he furthered his education by successfully participating in a filmmaking course at the New George Ovashvili York Film Academy organised by Universal Studios in Hollywood. His feature film debut was THE OTHER BANK (2009), a war refugee drama which screened at 80 international film festivals in more than 50 countries and won about 50 international awards.

Filmography: 2009 THE OTHER BANK

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

CORRECTIONS CLASS

Класс коррекции (KLASS KORREKZII) DIRECTED BY: Ivan Tverdovsky WRITTEN BY: Dmitri Lanchikhin & Ivan Tverdovsky PRODUCED BY: Natalia Mokritskaya, Mila Rozanova, Uliana Savelieva, Michael Kaczmarek & Markus Boehm DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Fedor Struchev EDITOR: Ivan Tverdovsky COSTUME DESIGNER: Anna Chistova

SOUND DESIGNER: Michael Kaczmarek ORIGINAL SCORE: Josef Bardanashvili MAIN CAST: Maria Poezhaeva (Lena), Philipp Avdeev (Anton)

Lena is a bright, disabled girl who, after years spent studying at home, is keen to get back to school. She is assigned to a special class for disabled pupils who have to present themselves before a school commission at the end of the year in order to prove that they merit being moved back into a “normal” class. However, her burnt-out teachers show absolutely no desire to motivate or stimulate the students; on the contrary, they try to quash any interest Lena shows in more complex study material from day one. Nevertheless, Lena soon immerses herself in the school routine and finds companionship in her classmate Anton. Yet their transparent happiness is not to everyone’s liking and repercussions soon follow. Production & World Sales:: New People Film Company Mila Rozanova Brusov Lane 2-14-74 123242 Moscow RUSSIA rosmillia@gmail.com tel: +79 262 45 36 25

SELECTION

Russia, Germany 85 min.

CORRECTIONS CLASS

Festival Participation/Awards: Gothenburg IFF Hong Kong IFF Karlovy Vary IFF: Best Film (East is West) Kiev IFF Molodist Marrakech IFF: Golden Star for Best Film Montreal World FF Seattle IFF Taipei FF Tallinn Black Nights FF

Ivan Tverdovsky Ivan I. Tverdovsky studied at the prestigious Russian Institute of Cinematography. He graduated in 2011. Before making his first feature film CORRECTIONS CLASS in 2014, Ivan made two short documentaries, PIANISM (2012) and DOG’S PARADISE (2013). In 2015, Ivan was invited to participate in the jury of the East NIKA Awards: Discovery of the Year is West section of the Karlovy Vary IFF. Ivan’s next project is ZOOLOGY which was presented as part of the Paris Co- Ivan Tverdovsky Production Village in June 2015.

Filmography: 2012 PIANISM, short 2013 DOG’S PARADISE, short

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

DORA OR THE SEXUAL NEUROSES OF OUR PARENTS DORA ODER DIE SEXUELLEN NEUROSEN UNSERER ELTERN DIRECTED BY: Stina Werenfels WRITTEN BY: Stina Werenfels & Boris Treyer PRODUCED BY: Samir & Nicole Gerhards DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Lukas Strebel EDITOR: Jann Anderegg PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Beatrice Schultz

COSTUME DESIGNER: Gitti Fuchs SOUND DESIGNER: Peter Bräker ORIGINAL SCORE: Peter Scherer ANIMATION: Daniel Brenner MAIN CAST: Victoria Schulz (Dora), Jenny Schily (Kristin), Urs Jucker (Felix), Lars Eidinger (Peter)

Dora is 18 and bursting with curiosity. Her mother Kristin has recently taken Dora off her sedating medication. The young woman with a learning disability throws herself into all that life has to offer – this includes an infatuation with a man. To Kristin’s horror the two have a spontaneous sexual encounter that soon develops into a liaison: the morally dubious man is clearly drawn to Dora’s uninhibited sexuality. While Kristin tries in vain for another child, Dora finds herself pregnant… Production: Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion AG Samir Molkenstrasse 21 8004 Zürich SWITZERLAND office@dvfilm.ch tel: +41 44 456 3020

World Sales: Wide Loïc Magneron 9, rue Bleue 75009 Paris FRANCE lm@widemanagement.com tel: +33 66 04 39 686

Press: Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion AG Franziska Sonder Molkenstrasse 21 8004 Zürich SWITZERLAND office@dvfilm.ch tel: +41 44 456 3020

SELECTION

Switzerland, Germany 90 min.

www.dora-derfilm.ch

Director’s Statement: When in 2003 I saw Lukas Bärfuss’ premiere of “The Sexual Neuroses of our Parents” I left the theatre struck with a sense of ambivalence. One question kept going round in my head: What is morally right and what is wrong? I’ve been mulling over these questions ever since. THE STORY A mother who can no longer bare the pharmaceutical sedation of her 18-year-old daughter courageously stops her medication. Now, we witness the sexual awakening of Dora, a young woman with a learning disability, and follow how this casts her parents and surroundings into flux. Whilst teenagers usually withdraw from their parents, Dora goes the other way: She confronts them, and thus us, candidly with her sexuality. FREEDOM AND SEXUAL AUTONOMY Looking at the family, I was intrigued by how the mother – out of love – encourages her disabled daughter’s autonomy. She wishes for her daughter to participate in life with selfdetermination, thus equal. But the fact that she embraces her autonomy with her whole body and a more than dubious lover comes unexpected to her parents. Without knowing, Dora is demanding her fundamental rights: the right to personal freedom and the right to marriage and family. Thus, she sends a whole family system into a tailspin. Initially Dora’s awakening harmonises with her parents’ ideals – she is active, full of curiosity and unconventional – but she soon grows unpredictable and starts taking risks. As her sexuality manifests itself, so do the dangers surrounding Dora and her parents’ concerns grow: now, each of Dora’s actions cause a parental response of judgment, protection or control. Whilst her parents feel obliged to intervene, the authorities encourage Dora’s growing independence. (In 2013, new Swiss legislation came into effect: patronization and legal finger-wagging have made way for the right to determine your own future. In effect authorities are now legally required to offer tailor-made solutions for each person with disabilities. This development can be observed in many other European countries). MOTHER-DAUGHTER CONFLICT The story focuses on the shifting relationship between mother and daughter as the mother comes to terms with letting go of her own childbearing years and her little girl at the same time.

DORA OR THE SEXUAL NEUROSES OF OUR PARENTS

Festival Participation/Awards: Berlin IFF Brussels FF: Cineuropa Award, Cinelab Award for Best Image Gijon IFF Locarno IFF

portrait: Katharina Lütscher

Stina Werenfels

Filmography: 1994 FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOWER EAST SIDE, short 1998 PASTRY, PAIN & POLITICS 2006, short 1999 ID SWISS: MAKING OF A JEW, short 2006 GOING PRIVATE

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Peter Greenaway PRODUCED BY: Bruno Felix, Femke Wolting, San Fu Maltha & Cristina Velasco L. DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Reinier van Brummelen EDITOR: Elmer Leupen

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Ana Solares COSTUME DESIGNER: Brenda Goméz ANIMATION: Jan Andersson MAIN CAST: Elmer Bäck (Sergei Eisenstein), Luis Alberti (Palomino Cañedo)

In 1931, at the height of his artistic powers, Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein travels to Mexico to shoot a new film to be titled QUE VIVA MEXICO. Freshly rejected by Hollywood and under increasing pressure to return to Stalinist Russia, Eisenstein arrives in the city of Guanajuato. Chaperoned by his guide Palomino Cañedo, he vulnerably experiences the ties between Eros and Thanatos, sex and death, happy to create their effects in cinema, troubled to suffer them in life. Production: Submarine Ilja Roomans Arie Biemondstraat 111 1054 PD Amsterdam THE NETHERLANDS ilja@submarine.nl tel: +31 20 82 04 940

World Sales: Films Boutique Valeska Neu Köpenicker Strasse 184 10997 Berlin GERMANY valeska@filmsboutique.com tel: +49 30 695 378 50

Press: Submarine Yaniv Wolf Arie Biemondstraat 111 1054 PD Amsterdam THE NETHERLANDS yaniv@submarine.nl tel: +31 208 204 959

SELECTION

Netherlands, Mexico, Belgium, Finland 105 min.

www.facebook.com/eisensteinguanajuato

Peter Greenaway’s film explores the mind of a creative genius facing the desires and fears of love, sex and death through ten passionate days that helped shape the rest of the career of one of the greatest masters of cinema.

EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO

Peter Greenaway Peter Greenaway was born in Wales and educated in London. He trained as a painter for four years, and started making his own films in 1966. He has continued to make cinema in a great variety of ways, which has also informed his making of installations for the Palazzo Fortuny in Venice, the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, the Louvre in Paris, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Hofburg in Vienna, the Brera in Milan and the Armory in New York. He has collaborated with the composers John Cage, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, Wim Mertens, Louis Andriessen, Goran Brekovic, Giovanni Sollima and David Lang, and toured the world with his Tulse Luper Suitcases VJ Show. He has regularly been nominated in Cannes, Venice and Berlin, published books and written for the theatre and opera. His first feature film, THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT (1982), received much critical acclaim and established him internationally as one of the most original and important filmmakers of our times, a reputation consolidated by the films THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER and THE PILLOW-BOOK and more recently by NIGHTWATCHING and the documentary REMBRANDT’S J’ACCUSE. His current projects include multi-media installations involving the original paintings of Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” in Amsterdam, da Vinci’s “Last Supper” in Milan, and the Veronese “Marriage at Cana” in Venice. His latest completed feature film GOLTZIUS & THE PELICAN COMPANY had its international premiere at the Rome FF in November 2012. The short 3D film JUST IN TIME, commissioned for the Guimarães European Cultural Capital Fund was completed in 2013 and premiered in Cannes. Greenaway has honorary degrees from the Universities of Edinburgh, Bucharest, Southampton and Utrecht, and was awarded a CBE and a BAFTA for services to cinema.

Festival Participation/Awards: BAFICI Buenos Aires Int’l Independent FF Berlin IFF CPH:PIX Hong Kong IFF Istanbul IFF Jeonju IFF Moscow IFF Seattle IFF Sydney FF Vilnius IFF

Peter Greenaway

Filmography: 1982 THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT 1989 THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER 1996 THE PILLOW-BOOK 2003 THE TULSE LUPER SUITCASES 2007 NIGHTWATCHING 2008 REMBRANDT’S J’ACCUSE, doc. 2012 GOLTZIUS & THE PELICAN COMPANY 2013 JUST IN TIME, short 3D

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

EVERY THING WILL BE FINE DIRECTED BY: Wim Wenders WRITTEN BY: Bjørn Olaf Johannessen PRODUCED BY: Gian-Piero Ringel DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Benoît Debie EDITOR: Toni Froschhammer PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Emmanuel Fréchette COSTUME DESIGNER: Sophie Lefebvre

SOUND DESIGNER: Tormod Ringnes, Christian Holm, Niklas Skarp & Peter Bergström ORIGINAL SCORE: Alexandre Desplat MAIN CAST: James Franco (Tomas), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Kate), Rachel McAdams (Sara), Marie-Josée Croze (Ann), Robert Naylor (Christopher), Patrick Bauchau (Dad), Peter Stormare (publisher)

A winter evening. A car on a country road. It’s snowing, visibility is poor. Out of nowhere, a sled comes sliding down a hill. The car comes to a grinding halt. Silence. The driver is Tomas, a writer. He cannot be blamed for the tragic accident. It’s also not young Christopher’s fault, who should have taken better care of his brother, nor their mother’s, Kate, who could have called the children home earlier. Production: Neue Road Movies Saarbrücker Straße 24 10405 Berlin GERMANY office@neueroadmovies.com tel: +49 30 814 529350

World Sales: HanWay Films Chiara Gelardin 24 Hanway Street W1T 1UH London UK cg@hanwayfilms.com tel: +44 207 290 0750

Press: HanWay Films Jonathan Lynch-Staunton 24 Hanway Street W1T 1UH London UK jls@hanwayfilms.com

SELECTION

Germany, Canada, France, Sweden, Norway 118 min.

Wim Wenders Wim Wenders (born 1945) came to international prominence as one of the pioneers of the New German Cinema in the 1970s and is considered to be one of the most important figures in contemporary German film. In addition to his many prize-winning feature films his work as a scriptwriter, director, producer, photographer and author also encompasses an abundance of innovative documentaries, international photo exhibitions and numerous monographs, film books and prose collections. He lives and works in Berlin, together with his wife Donata. After completing his debut feature THE GOALIE’S ANXIETY AT THE PENALTY KICK (1971) Wenders turned to shooting his road movie trilogy ALICE IN THE CITIES (1973), WRONG MOVE (1974) and KINGS OF THE ROAD (1975), in which the protagonists try to come to terms with their rootlessness in post-war Germany. His international breakthrough came with THE AMERICAN FRIEND (1977). Since then Wenders has been honored with countless awards, including: the Golden Palm and the British Film Academy Award for PARIS, TEXAS (1984); the Director’s Prize in Cannes for WINGS OF DESIRE (1987); the Golden Lion in Venice for THE STATE OF THINGS (1982) and the Silver Bear for THE MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL (2000) in Berlin. BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB (1999), PINA (2011) and THE SALT OF THE EARTH (2014) have all been nominated for an Oscar. During the 2015 edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, Wenders was presented with the Honorary Golden Bear for his lifetime achievement. EVERY THING WILL BE FINE was part of the official programme.

EVERY THING WILL BE FINE

Festival Participation/Awards: Berlin IFF Helsinki IFF Istanbul IFF Toronto IFF

Wim Wenders portrait: Peter Lindbergh

Tomas falls into a depression. The relationship with his girlfriend Sara breaks under the pressure. All Tomas can do is continue writing. But does he have the right to base his work on experiences that include the grief of others? The film follows Tomas and his efforts to give meaning to his life again, as he establishes a family of his own with Ann and her daughter Mina. It also follows Kate and Christopher until, at the age of seventeen, the young man decides to confront the stranger he only met once, on that fateful evening.

Filmography: 1970 Summer in the City 1971 The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick 1972 The Scarlet Letter 1973 Alice in the Cities 1977 The American Friend 1982 The State of Things 1984 Paris, Texas 1987 Wings of Desire 1989 Notebook on Cities and Clothes 1991 Until the End of the World 1994 Lisbon Story 1999 Buena Vista Social Club 2000 The Million Dollar Hotel 2004 Land of Plenty 2005 Don’t Come Knocking 2008 Palermo Shooting 2011 Pina (3D) 2013 Cathedrals of Culture, episode The Berlin Philharmonic 2014 The Salt of the Earth

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

EX MACHINA WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Alex Garland PRODUCED BY: Andrew Macdonald & Allon Reich DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Rob Hardy EDITOR: Mark Day PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Mark Digby

COSTUME DESIGNER: Sammy Sheldon SOUND DESIGNER: Glenn Freemantle ORIGINAL SCORE: Geoff Barrow & Ben Salisbury MAIN CAST: Alicia Vikander (Ava), Domhnall Gleeson (Caleb Smith), Oscar Isaac (Nathan Bateman)

Caleb Smith, a programmer at an internet-search giant, wins a competition to spend a week at the private mountain estate of the company’s brilliant and reclusive CEO, Nathan Bateman. Upon his arrival, Caleb learns that Nathan has chosen him to be the human component in a Turing Test - charging him with evaluating the capabilities, and ultimately the consciousness, of Nathan’s latest experiment in artificial intelligence. That experiment is Ava, a breathtaking A.I. whose emotional intelligence proves more sophisticated — and more deceptive — than the two men could have imagined. Production: DNA Films & TV 10 Amwell Street London EC1R 1UQ UK info@dnafilms.com tel: +44 207 843 44 10

World Sales & Press: Universal Pictures International Maryse Fitzpatrick 2nd floor, Central St Giles, St Giles High Street London WC2H 8NU UK maryse.fitzpatrick@nbcuni.com tel: +44 790 074 88 88

Press: HanWay Films Jonathan Lynch-Staunton 24 Hanway Street W1T 1UH London UK jls@hanwayfilms.com

SELECTION

110 min.

exmachina-movie.com

EX MACHINA

Alex Garland Born in London in 1970, Alex Garland is the author of such screenplays as 28 DAYS LATER and SUNSHINE. EX MACHINA is his directorial debut.

Festival Participation/Awards: Bari IFF Gothenburg IFF

Alex Garland

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

GOODNIGHT MOMMY ICH SEH ICH SEH

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala PRODUCED BY: Ulrich Seidl DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Martin Gschlacht EDITOR: Michael Palm PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Hannes Salat

COSTUME DESIGNER: Tanja Hausner SOUND DESIGNER: Matz Müller, Erik Mischijew ORIGINAL SCORE: Olga Neuwirth MAIN CAST: Susanne Wuest (mother), Elias Schwarz (twin), Lukas Schwarz (twin)

In the heat of the summer. An isolated house in the countryside between woods and corn fields. Ten-year-old twins wait for their mother. When she comes back, her head wrapped in bandages after plastic surgery, nothing is as it was before. Stern and distant, determined to find the truth by any means. Production: Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion GmbH Ulrich Seidl Wasserburgergasse 5/7 1090 Wien AUSTRIA office@ulrichseidl.com tel: +43 1 310 28 24

World Sales: Films Distribution François Yon 34 Rue du Louvre 75001 Paris FRANCE info@filmsdistribution.com tel: +33 1 531 033 99

Press: Alessandra Thiele Beckerstraße 18/23 1010 Wien AUSTRIA alessandrathiele@gmail.com tel: +43 67 639 838 13

SELECTION

Austria 99 min.

www.ichsehichseh.at

Director’s Statement: A horror film? An arthouse film? Our film is meant to be both. We love physical cinema. We love films which are physically overwhelming. Films which are not simply about a concept or telling a story but rather one that show people sweating, trembling and screaming, and in which this sweating, trembling and screaming is passed on for the audience to experience. At the same time we also want to use this story to ask what we believe are existential questions. Questions directly related to lived reality. Questions about education, power relationships within families and about identity. Is it possible to maintain a consistent personality in life? Or to have different identities depending on social context? Identities which, perhaps, encourage monstrous things to emerge? In our film there are bandages, masks and surfaces, and questions about what they may be concealing. For this reason it was very important that in this – our first feature film – we shot on 35mm film, regardless of budget constraints. For us a face on 35mm simply has more mystery about it. Yet despite these mysteries, childhood games and psychological puzzles we still feel bound to a certain naturalism, to a rootedness in reality. We also wanted to make a film that says something about our lives. Goodnight Mommy (Ich seh Ich seh) is a mother-child-horror-fairy-tale, a little story about a great loss of trust, a psycho-terror-chamber piece born of the everyday and rooted in the simplest of things: a bandaged face, a mistaken sentence, the death of a cat, a magnifying glass and dental floss.

GOODNIGHT MOMMY

Severin Fiala Severin Fiala, born 1985 in Horn, studied at the Vienna Film Academy. He worked for the Red Cross and celebrated his first success with the award-winning short film Elefantenhaut (co-directed with Ulrike Putzer). First collaboration with Veronika Franz was the internationally award-winning documentary Kern which premiered at the Locarno IFF. Veronika Franz Veronika Franz, born 1965 in Vienna, studied Philosophy. She worked as a film journalist for the Viennese daily Kurier and has worked together with Ulrich Seidl as artistic collaborator on screenplays such as Hundstage (2001), Import/Export (2007) and the Paradise Trilogy (2012). She has also worked as assistant director and in casting. The documentary film Kern (2012) was her debut as a director.

Festival Participation/Awards: AFI Fest: LA IFF BAFICI Buenos Aires Busan IFF CPH:PIX Era New Horizons IFF Hong Kong IFF Jerusalem IFF Karlovy Vary IFF Palm Springs IFF Rotterdam IFF Sarajevo FF Seattle IFF Seville European FF Stockholm IFF Sydney FF Tallinn Black Nights FF Thessaloniki IFF: FIPRESCI Award Toronto IFF Venice IFF Warsaw FF

Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

IN THE SHADOW OF WOMEN L’Ombre des femmes

DIRECTED BY: Philippe Garrel WRITTEN BY: Philippe Garrel, Jean-Claude Carrière, Caroline Deruas, Arlette Langmann PRODUCED BY: Saïd Ben Saïd, Michel Merkt DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Renato Berta EDITOR: François Gédigier

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Manu de Chauvigny COSTUME DESIGNER: Justine Pearce SOUND DESIGNER: François Musy ORIGINAL SCORE: Jean-Louis Aubert MAIN CAST: Stanislas Merhar (Pierre), Clotilde Courau (Manon), Lena Paugam (Elisabeth)

Pierre and Manon make low-budget documentaries and live off odd jobs. When Pierre meets a young trainee, Elisabeth, she becomes his mistress. But Pierre doesn’t want to leave Manon - he wants to keep both women. Elisabeth discovers that Manon has a lover, and tells Pierre. Pierre returns to Manon, the woman he truly loves. Feeling betrayed, he begs her, neglecting Elisabeth... Production: SBS Productions Kevin Chneiweiss 29 rue Danielle Casanova 75009 Paris FRANCE k.chneiweiss@sbs-productions.com tel: + 33 1 45 63 66 68

World Sales: Wild Bunch Olivier Barbier 65 rue de Dunkerque 75009 Paris FRANCE obarbier@wildbunch.eu tel: +33 1 43 13 21 39

Press: Magali Montet 5 Place d’Alleray 75015 Paris FRANCE magali@magalimontet.com tel: +33 6 71 63 36 16

SELECTION

France, Switzerland 73 min.

www.wildbunch.biz/movie/ in-the-shadow-of-women

IN THE SHADOW OF WOMEN Festival Participation/Awards: Cannes IFF New York FF Toronto IFF

Philippe Garrel

Director’s Statement: A woman has disappeared and we celebrate the love we felt for her. At first, we are satisfied with glorifying the world and the tenderness of the feelings we shared. And when all that falls short, we seek solace in art, and through it, we try to leave for others the proof that love exists, and that it abandoned us, since we felt it ... This is the material from which my film is made.

Filmography: 1964 LES ENFANTS DÉSACCORDÉS, short 1967 MARIE POUR MÉMOIRE 1968 LE RÉVÉLATEUR 1968 LA CONCENTRATION 1969 LE LIT DE LA VIERGE 1970 LA CICATRICE INTÉRIEURE 1974 LES HAUTES SOLITUDES 1975 UN ANGE PASSE 1975 LE BERCEAU DE CRISTAL 1976 LE VOYAGE AU PAYS DES MORTS 1977 LE BLEU DES ORIGINES, short 1979 L’ENFANT SECRET 1983 LIBERTÉ, LA NUIT 1984 RUE FONTAINE, short 1984 ELLE A PASSÉ TANT D’HEURES SOUS LES SUNLIGHTS 1988 LES BAISERS DE SECOURS 1990 J’ENTENDS PLUS LA GUITARE 1993 LA NAISSANCE DE L’AMOUR 1995 LE CŒUR FANTÔME 1998 NIGHT WIND 2001 WILD INNOCENCE 2004 REGULAR LOVERS 2005 FRONTIER OF THE DAWN 2011 THAT SUMMER 2013 JEALOUSY

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

KOZA SOUND DESIGNER: Tobias Potočný MAIN CAST: Peter Baláž (Koza), Stanislava Bongilajová (Miša), Nikola Bongilajová (Nikolka), Zvonko Lakčević (Zvonko), Tatiana Piussi (hitchhiker), Ján Franek (Franek)

pictures: Martin Kollar

DIRECTED BY: Ivan Ostrochovský WRITTEN BY: Marek Leščák & Ivan Ostrochovský PRODUCED BY: Marek Urban, Ivan Ostrochovský & Jiří Konečný DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Martin Kollár EDITOR: Viera Čákanyová, Maroš Šlapeta, Matej Beneš, Peter Morávek

Peter “Koza” Baláž is a former Olympic boxer. He and his partner Miša live in a dilapidated housing estate, constantly struggling to make ends meet. Miša learns that she is expecting a child and decides to terminate her pregnancy. She pressures Koza to get money for the procedure. Koza, who has not trained in a while, steps back into the ring, hoping to earn some much-needed cash and possibly change Miša’s mind. He and his manager, Zvonko, embark on a “tour”, where success is not measured in victories, but in the amount of blows that Koza can take. The film features Peter Baláž, who competed at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, and Ján Franek, Olympic medallist from Moscow 1980, as his coach. Production: sentimentalfilm Ivan Ostrochovský Špitálska 20 81108 Bratislava SLOVAKIA ivan@punkchart.sk tel: +42 1915 606 088

World Sales: Pluto Film Distribution Network Patricie Pouzarová Bayreuther Str. 9 10789 Berlin GERMANY patricie@plutofilm.de tel: +49 157 8227 4916

SELECTION

Slovakia, Czech Republic 75 min. Director’s Statement: Koza is a simple guy from a special school for kids with learning disabilities and disorders, but what I really respect about him is that considering the situation he grew up in, he worked his way up. His parents left him with his grandmother and since Koza’s father was a boxer, too, Koza wanted to impress his dad and started boxing because of him, hoping the parents would take him back. Koza is a nice person, but he’s somehow struggling to get control of his life. I knew that hiring him to do the film would also make his life a bit easier – he would get paid and would get some extra cash beside his low disability pension. He was glad to have this opportunity and he hoped his life would change. Of course, nobody can change your life for you. You only can do it on your own. But what helped Koza is that for four years, during the time we were preparing and shooting the film, he was in contact with a different reality, which, of course, influenced him, changed his perception of life, moved him into a different direction. Koza’s story is tough and sad, it deals with several pressing and complicated issues, but that was not the storyline we wanted to emphasize. On the contrary, we even wanted to repress it to avoid the pathos which usually emerges when one stresses pain, misery and misfortune. To express the “step-back” formally as well, we decided with cinematographer Martin Kollár to shoot the film with a static camera and in long shots. That gives the audience a bit of a psychological distance and emotional freedom in the film.

www.kozamovie.com

KOZA

Festival Participation/Awards: Berlin IFF Brussels FF Edinburgh IFF goEast Wiesbaden: Best Director FIPRESCI Award Helsinki IFF Hong Kong IFF “Message to Man” St Petersburg Jeonju IFF Karlovy Vary IFF La Rochelle IFF Palić European FF: Seyfi Teoman Award Pula FF: Best Film Seville European FF Stockholm IFF Thessaloniki IFF Toronto IFF Transilvania IFF Ivan Ostrochovský Vienna IFF Ivan Ostrochovský studied documentary filmmaking at Vilnius IFF: Best Film the Bratislava’s Academy of Performing Arts. His feature Warsaw FF documentary debut VELVET TERRORISTS, co-directed with Yerevan IFF Pavol Pekarčík and Peter Kerekes, was presented at the 64th Berlinale (Forum) and received the Tagesspiegel Readers’ Ivan Ostrochovský Prize. Further festivals and awards included: Karlovy Vary IFF – FEDEORA Award, Planete+ Doc – Special Mention, Hot Docs IFF, Hamptons IFF – Special Mention, Vilnius FF, Sofia IFF, Transilvania IFF, Odessa IFF. KOZA is his fiction feature debut.

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

LABYRINTH OF LIES IM LABYRINTH DES SCHWEIGENS DIRECTED BY: Giulio Ricciarelli WRITTEN BY: Elisabeth Bartel PRODUCED BY: Uli Putz, Sabine Lamby, Jakob Claussen DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Martin Langer, Roman Osin EDITOR: Andrea Mertens PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Manfred Döring COSTUME DESIGNER: Aenne Plaumann

SOUND DESIGNER: Günther Gries, Friedrich M. Dosch, Stefan Korte, Tschangis Chahrokh ORIGINAL SCORE: Niki Reiser, Sebastian Pille MAIN CAST: Alexander Fehling (Johann Radmann), Johann von Bülow (Haller), André Szymanski (Gnielka), Friederike Becht (Marlene), Robert Hunger Bühler (Friedberg)

Frankfurt 1958: nobody wants to look back to the time of the National Socialist regime. Young prosecuting attorney Johann Radmann comes across some documents that help to initiate the trial against some members of the SS who served in Auschwitz. But both the horrors of the past and the hostility against his work bring Johann to the point of meltdown. It is nearly impossible for him to find his way through this maze; everybody seems to have been involved or guilty. Production: Claussen+Putz Filmproduktion GmbH Alexandra Ludwig Herzog-Wilhelm-Straße 27 80331 München GERMANY alexandra.ludwig@cp-film.com tel: +49892311010

World Sales: Beta Cinema Dirk Schürhoff Gruenwalder Weg 28d 82041 Oberhaching GERMANY martina.knabe@betacinema.com tel: +49 89 2311 010

Press: boxfish films Philipp Graf Raumerstraße 27 10437 Berlin GERMANY graf@boxfish-films.de tel. +49 30 440 44 753

SELECTION

Germany 118 min.

imlabyrinth-film.de

LABYRINTH OF LIES Giulio Ricciarelli Director, writer and actor Giulio Ricciarelli was born in Milan in 1965. After his A-levels he was educated at the Otto-FalckenbergSchule in Munich. He played at different theatres in Germany and in many TV and cinema movies. In 2000 he founded the naked eye filmproduction together with Sabine Lamby. In 2005 he directed his first short film VINCENT which won several national and international prizes like the Golden Sparrow Award (Erfurt, Germany) and was nominated for the European Film Award. In 2008 he directed LOVE IT LIKE IT IS and in 2009 his third short film LIGHTS won the Golden Spike Award at the Valladolid IFF and a nomination for the European Film Award in 2010.

Festival Participation/Awards: Toronto IFF Hong Kong IFF Zurich FF

Giulio Ricciarelli

Filmography: 2009/10 LIGHTS (Ampelmann), short 2008/09 LOVE IT LIKE IT IS, short 2005 VINCENT, short

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

LOUDER THAN BOMBS PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Molly Hughes COSTUME DESIGNER: Emma Potter SOUND DESIGNER: Gisle Tveito ORIGINAL SCORE: Ola Fløttum MAIN CAST: Gabriel Byrne (Gene), Isabelle Huppert (Isabelle), Jesse Eisenberg (Jonah), Devin Druid (Conrad)

stills: Jakob Ihre, portrait: Rasmus Weng Karlsen

DIRECTED BY: Joachim Trier WRITTEN BY: Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier PRODUCED BY: Thomas Robsahm, Alexandre Mallet-Guy, Joshua Astrachan, Ron Yerxa, Albert Berger, Marc Turtletaub DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Jakob Ihre EDITOR: Olivier Bugge Coutté

An upcoming exhibition celebrating photographer Isabelle Reed three years after her untimely death brings her eldest son Jonah back to the family house - forcing him to spend more time with his father Gene and withdrawn younger brother Conrad than he has in years. With the three of them under the same roof, Gene tries desperately to connect with his two sons, but they struggle to reconcile their feelings about the woman they remember so differently. Production: Motlys AS Thomas Robsahm Sagveien 18 0459 Oslo NORWAY thomas@motlys.com tel: +47 95 240 418

World Sales: Memento Films International Tanja Meissner 9 Cité Paradis 75010 Paris FRANCE tanja@memento-films.com tel: +33 1 53 49 02 0

SELECTION

Norway, Denmark, France 108 min.

LOUDER THAN BOMBS

Festival Participation/Awards: Cannes IFF Melbourne IFF Norwegian IFF Haugesund Joachim Trier Born in 1974, Joachim Trier is an internationally celebrated Toronto IFF director and screenwriter. His critically acclaimed and award-winning feature films REPRISE (2006) and OSLO, Joachim Trier AUGUST 31ST (2011), both co-written with Eskil Vogt, have been invited to and won awards at international film festivals such as Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Karlovy Vary, Gothenburg, Milan, and Istanbul. OSLO, AUGUST 31ST was selected for Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 and nominated for the César award for Best Foreign Film 2013 after reaching over 180,000 admissions at theatres in France. REPRISE received the 2007 Amanda Award (Norway’s national film award) for Best Norwegian Film, Best Director and Best Script. The film was released in the US by Miramax and was the Norwegian Oscar candidate for Best Foreign-Language Film in 2006. Hailed as “a sublimely natural talent,” Trier was named one of “20 Directors to Watch” by the New York Times in 2013. LOUDER THAN BOMBS (2015) is his English-language film Filmography: debut and was his first appearance in the main competition 1999 PIETA, short at the Cannes FF. 2001 STILL, short 2002 PROCTER, short 2006 REPRISE 2011 OSLO 31st AUGUST

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

MAGICAL GIRL WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Carlos Vermut PRODUCED BY: Pedro Hernández Santos DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Santiago Racaj EDITOR: Emma Tusell PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Montse Lacruz

COSTUME DESIGNER: Iratxe Sanz SOUND DESIGNER: Daniel de Zayas & Eduardo G. Castro MAIN CAST: José Sacristán (Damián), Bárbara Lennie (Bárbara), Luis Bermejo (Luis), Lucía Pollán (Alicia)

Alicia is a sick child who dreams of wearing the dress of her favourite Japanese series magical girl Yukiko. Luis, her father, will try to do everything in his hand to achieve it. But his fate intersects with Barbara, an attractive young woman with mental disorders and with Damian, a teacher retired from everything but from his troubled past. Luis, Barbara and Damian will be trapped in a world of blackmails, where instincts and reason will struggle in a tragic battle, changing their lives forever. Production: Aqui y Alli Films Pedro Hernández Santos Calle General Oráa 19 28006 Madrid SPAIN info@aquiyallifilms.com tel: +34 910 099 963

World Sales: Films Distribution François Yon 36, rue du Louvre 75001 Paris FRANCE info@filmsdistribution.com tel: +33 1 53 103 399

SELECTION

Spain 127 min.

www.filmsdistribution.com/Film. aspx?ID=5342

MAGICAL GIRL

Director’s Statement: In my new film, as in the latest Korean genre films, the story is what it is because the characters make certain decisions, and the characters grow the way they do because the story puts them in that situation. Therefore, they are inseparable. MAGICAL GIRL uses a chain of blackmails, a black cinema typical element, to speak about love, desire, obsession and the relationship between human beings and their darker side: the eternal conflict of the human souls struggling against their enemies.

Festival Participation/Awards: Busan IFF Donostia San Sebastian IFF: Golden Shell, Silver Shell for Best Director Dubai IFF Rotterdam IFF Stockholm IFF Thessaloniki IFF Toronto IFF GOYA Award for Best Actress

Carlos Vermut

Carlos Vermut The young director Carlos Vermut wrote, directed and autoproduced his first feature film DIAMOND FLASH in 2011 with an impressive EUR 20,000 budget. The film received great reviews and won the Rizoma’s Grand Prix. It was also uploaded onto the VOD platform filmin.es where it reached top figures in the first week. Previously, he has worked as a cartoonist for the newspaper “El Mundo”. Carlos won the Notodofilmfest with his first short film MAQUETAS. He has published three comics and is also the author of TVE’s cartoon series JELLY JAM. Filmography: 2009 MAQUETAS, short 2011 DIAMOND FLASH

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

MARSHLAND LA ISLA MÍNIMA

COSTUME DESIGNER: Fernando García SOUND DESIGNER: Daniel De Zayas ORIGINAL SCORE: Julio De La Rosa MAIN CAST: Raúl Arévalo (Pedro), Javier Gutiérrez (Juan), Antonio De La Torre (Rodrigo), Nerea Barros (Rocío), Manolo Solo (journalist), Jesús Castro (Quini), Salva Reina (Jesús)

pictures: Julio Vergne

DIRECTED BY: Alberto Rodríguez WRITTEN BY: Rafael Cobos, Alberto Rodríguez PRODUCED BY: José Antonio Félez, Mikel Lejarza, Mercedes Gomero, Gervasio Iglesias DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Alex Catalán EDITOR: José Manuel García Moyano PRODUCTION DESIGNER: José Domínguez Del Olmo

1980. Juan and Pedro are detectives in Madrid’s homicide division and ideological opposites. As punishment after getting written up, they are sent to a remote and forgotten town in the marshes of the Guadalquivir river to investigate the disappearance and brutal murder of two teenage girls during the town festivities. But they’re going to have to overcome their differences if they want to discover and confront a savage killer who’s spent years murdering in this community rooted in a past when women didn’t matter to anyone. Production: Atípica Films Condesa de Venadito, 19 28027 Madrid SPAIN atipica@atipicafilms.com tel: +34 91 36 76 776

World Sales: Film Factory Entertainment Calle Lincoln 11, 2o, 4a 08006 Barcelona SPAIN assistance@filmfactory.es tel: +34 93 36 84 608

Press: Atípica Films Cristina Sutherland Condesa de Venadito, 19 28027 Madrid SPAIN cristina@atipicafilms.com tel: +34 91 36 76 776

SELECTION

Spain 104 min.

laislaminima.com

Director’s Statement: THE GENESIS It began some years ago, in a photo exhibition I attended with Alex Catalán, DoP and a good friend. Atín Aya, the photographer from Seville, had devoted himself to capturing the last vestiges of a style of life that existed in the marshlands of the Guadalquivir river for centuries. Many of the photographs were portraits of the locals and showed a mixture of resignation, mistrust and hardness which were part of those faces frozen in the past and that, with the mechanisation of the labour, most likely wouldn’t have much of a future. The exhibition was a reflection of the end of an era. That was my first contact with La Isla, the sunset for a landscape fit for a Western of the end of the century. For some months during 2009, Rafael Cobos and I toyed with the possibility of writing a “noir” story, having as inspiration Bolaño’s novel “2666” and films such as Ladislao Vajda’s The Bait, or others like: MEMORIES of Murder, Chinatown, Bad Day at Black Rock, etc. As a source of inspiration, we also had everything the marshlands evoked in us and a magic and mysterious place where wealth and power lived shoulder to shoulder with the pain and misery of characters resulting from a social and political past. With all that information we began to write a story. We decided to set it in 1980, a year of great political tension in Spain, a tension which had to be perceived in the background, as one perceives the gnawing of teeth. THE SHOOT The marshlands always appeared to us to be an immense, tough territory; magnetic but truly inhospitable and cruel. And that’s exactly what it was. It was a difficult movie to make; very physical for each and every one of the members of the crew. The rice crop forced us to start filming early. The weather showed all its extremes with maximum temperatures of 42ºC in late summer and lows of -2ºC towards the end of November. Every step we took, because of the vastness of the territory involved, became a logistical nightmare. THE CAST I think what I am most proud of is to have managed to keep all actors protected from the “harshness” of the shoot, just one of the enormous difficulties which we faced daily.

MARSHLAND

Festival Participation/Awards: Donostia San Sebastian IFF Guadalajara IFF Istanbul IFF Jeonju IFF Les Arcs European FF Seattle IFF Shanghai IFF 5 GOYA Awards: Best Picture, Director, Lead Actor, New Actress & Cinematography

Alberto Rodríguez

Filmography: 2000 THE PILGRIM FACTOR 2002 EL TRAJE 2005 7 VIRGINS 2009 AFTER 2012 UNIT 7 (Grupo 7)

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

MEN & CHICKEN MÆND & HØNS

SOUND DESIGNER: Nino Jacobsen ORIGINAL SCORE: Frans Bak & Jeppe Kaas MAIN CAST: Mads Mikkelsen (Elias), David Dencik (Gabriel), Søren Malling (Franz), Nicolas Bro (Josef), Nikolaj Lie Kaas (Gregor)

pictures: Rolf Konow

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Anders Thomas Jensen PRODUCED BY: Kim Magnusson & Tivi Magnusson DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Sebastian Blenkov EDITOR: Anders Villadsen PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Mia Stensgaard COSTUME DESIGNER: Manon Rasmussen

The film revolves around two special-natured brothers, Elias and Gabriel. Upon their father’s passing, the two brothers, who are not very fond of each other, find out through the father’s will, that they are adopted. Despite their disagreements, Elias and Gabriel decide to seek out their natural father and set out to the island where their father lives. Meanwhile, a surprise awaits Elias and Gabriel there. Surrounded by the island’s many odd personalities Elias and Gabriel discover a most paralysing, yet liberating truth about themselves and their family. Production: M&M Productions Kim Magnusson Refshalevej 213a 1432 København K DENMARK kim@mmproductions.dk tel: +45 20 95 77 77

M&M Productions Tivi Magnusson Refshalevej 213a 1432 København K DENMARK tivi@mmproductions.dk tel: +45 70 20 30 80

World Sales: LevelK Tine Klint Gl. Kongevej 137 B 1850 Frederiksberg C DENMARK tine.klint@levelk.dk tel: +45 20 10 85 80

SELECTION

Denmark, Germany 104 min.

MEN & CHICKEN

Festival Participation/Awards: BFI London FF Toronto IFF

Anders Thomas Jensen Anders Thomas Jensen Director and screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen was born in 1972. Apart from shooting his own films, he has also written various screenplays, collaborating with filmmakers such as Lone Scherfig (WILBUR WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF, 2002) and Susanne Bier (OPEN HEARTS, 2001; BROTHERS, 2004; AFTER THE WEDDING, 2006; IN A BETTER WORLD, 2010).

Filmography: 1996 ERNST OG LYSET, short 1997 WOLFGANG, short 1998 ELECTION NIGHT, short 2000 FLICKERING LIGHTS 2003 GREEN BUTCHERS 2004 ADAMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S APPLES

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

MISS JULIE FRØKEN JULIE

DIRECTED BY: Liv Ullmann WRITTEN BY: Liv Ullmann, adapted from August Strindberg’s play “Miss Julie Strindberg” PRODUCED BY: Synnøve Hørsdal, Teun Hilte, Oliver Dungey DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Mikhail Krichman EDITOR: Michal Leszczylowski

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Caroline Amies COSTUME DESIGNER: Consolata Boyle SOUND DESIGNER: Stefan Henrix MAIN CAST: Jessica Chastain (Miss Julie), Collin Farrell (John), Samantha Morton (Kathleen)

1880. Over the course of midsummer night in Fermanagh, Ireland, a daughter of the AngloIrish aristocracy encourages her father’s valet to seduce her. Production: Maipo Film Anne-Line Berg Mølleparken 4 0459 Oslo NORWAY anneline@maipo.no tel: +47 400 21 310

Maipo Film Moa Liljedahl Mølleparken 4 0459 Oslo NORWAY moa@maipo.no tel: +47 413 42 737

World Sales: Wild Bunch International Sales Carole Baraton 65 rue de Dunkerque 75009 Paris FRANCE cbaraton@wildbunch.eu tel: +33 1 43 13 21 19

SELECTION

Norway, UK, Ireland, France 129 min.

MISS JULIE

Liv Ullmann

Liv Ullmann Liv Ullmann took the lead in eleven of Ingmar Bergmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s films, including PERSONA, CRIES AND WHISPERS, SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE and SHAME. The multiple awardwinning Norwegian actress has been invited to serve as president of the jury at both the Cannes (2001) and Berlin (1984) film festivals. She has also been nominated twice for the American Academy Award for Best Actress. During the 1990s, Liv Ullmann turned to directing (both films and stage plays), helming the feature films SOFIE (1992) and KRISTIN LAVRANSDATTER (1995) - both of which she also scripted - and the 1996 Swedish TV mini-series ENSKILDA SAMTAL. In 2000 she enjoyed a huge success with the drama FAITHLESS (in competition, Cannes IFF 2000). Liv Ullmann has directed numerous critically acclaimed stage plays all over the world, and recently she directed Cate Blanchett to extraordinary reviews in her sell-out production of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE in New York and Sydney. Her latest play as a director was UNCLE VANYA at the National Theatre in Oslo.

Filmography: 1992 SOFIE 1995 KRISTIN LAVRANSDATTER 2000 FAITHLESS

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

MUSTANG DIRECTED BY: Deniz Gamze Ergüven WRITTEN BY: Deniz Gamze Ergüven & Alice Winocour PRODUCED BY: Charles Gillibert DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: David Chizallet EDITOR: Mathilde Van de Moortel PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Türker Isçi Smith COSTUME DESIGNER: Evrim Hn

SOUND DESIGNER: Ibrahim Gök ORIGINAL SCORE: Warren Ellis MAIN CAST: Güneş Nezihe Şensoy (Lale), Doğa Zeynep Doğuşlu (Nur), Tuğba Sunguroğlu (Selma), Elit İşcan (Ece), İlayda Akdoğan (Sonay), Nihal Koldaş (the grandmother), Ayberk Pekcan (Erol )

Lale, 13, lives with her sisters in a small village of southern Turkey. Summer begins, the school year ends. On the way home from school the girls play innocently with some boys by the water, without ever imagining there could be consequences to such an innocent act. The girls are orphans and cared for by their archaic grandmother and authoritarian uncle, who are more concerned in protecting the family’s honour than they are in allowing the girls their freedom and basic rights. The girls are kept inside the house and are no longer allowed to leave at their will or go to school. Effectively prisoners in their own home, the girls refuse to be passive and begin to device their exit strategy, they stick together, sharing their collective dream of freedom. Meanwhile, their marriages are being arranged by their grandmother, and they are one by one being married off. Lale, the youngest realizes she must escape or face the same destiny as her sisters. Production: CG CINEMA Charles Gillibert 9 cité Paradis 75010 Paris FRANCE contact@cgcinema.eu tel: +33 1 84 17 35 08

SELECTION

France, Germany, Turkey 100 min.

MUSTANG Director’s Statement: MUSTANG is fast, busy, and I have often felt that the momentum of the writing and the pace of the film were entwined in a way that urged each other forward. This energy is, for me, the heart of the film, like the wild horse that gave it its name. This film grew from my profound desire to tell of what it means to be a girl in Turkey today. I have always been struck by what a particular experience this is. The one thing I have in common with the narrator and main character of the film is to be the youngest in a family nebula of girls and women. While the outlines of each situation are very real, the tone of the film is that of a tale. There is a mythical quality to the world as perceived by Lale and narrated by her voice, which lends its music to the film, establishes ellipses and gives the narrative a wholly subjective logic composed of sensations, impressions and memories. Mustang is first and foremost the story of a liberation and of Lale’s comingof-age. There are obstacles and monsters to cross along her way. The football game is the symbolic ball the girls dream of attending. Lale has been reinvested with a very specific courage and strength, irreverent and untamable. It is important that in the end she wins, and in the most improbable and exhilarating way. Deniz Gamze Ergüven A talented up-and-coming filmmaker, born in Ankara, living in Istanbul, Deniz Gamze Ergüven studied filmmaking at La Fémis in Paris after studying Literature and MA in African History in Johannesburg. Her graduation film BIR DAMLA SU was selected at many festivals. It was especially selected at Cinéfondation Cannes IFF and awarded at Locarno IFF. Since graduation from La Fémis, Deniz has developed two feature films : MUSTANG, co-written with Alice Winocour and KINGS, winner of Emergence in 2011, the Cinéfondation Workshop in 2011 and Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab in 2012.

Festival Participation/Awards: Cannes IFF: Label Europa Cinéma Prize Sarajevo FF Toronto IFF

Deniz Gamze Ergüven

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

MY GOLDEN DAYS

TROIS SOUVENIRS DE MA JEUNESSE PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Toma Baqueni COSTUME DESIGNER: Nathalie Raoul ORIGINAL SCORE: Grégoire Hetzel MAIN CAST: Quentin Dolmaire (Paul Dédalus), Lou RoyLecollinet (Esther), Mathieu Amalric (Paul, adult)

pictures: Jean Claude Lother

DIRECTED BY: Arnaud Desplechin WRITTEN BY: Arnaud Desplechin & Julie Peyr PRODUCED BY: Pascal Caucheteux & Grégoire Sorlat DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Irina Lubtchansky EDITOR: Laurence Braud

As Paul Dédalus prepares to return home, he remembers his youth … In MY GOLDEN DAYS, Arnaud Desplechin returns to the rich and complex emotional landscape he explored in MY SEX LIFE ... OR HOW I GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT and A CHRISTMAS TALE. World Sales: Wild Bunch Olivier Barbier 65 rue de Dunkerque 75009 Paris FRANCE obarbier@wildbunch.eu tel: +33 1 43 13 21 15

France 120 min.

SELECTION

www.wildbunch.biz/movie/my-golden-days

Arnaud Desplechin MY GOLDEN DAYS Discovered in 1991 thanks to his medium-length film LA VIE DES MORTS, Arnaud Desplechin was selected for the Cannes IFF with his first long feature film, LA SENTINELLE which was also his first film in the official competition (four others followed). He then directed COMMENT JE ME SUIS DISPUTE... (MA VIE SEXUELLE) which shed the light on a new generation of actors among which were Mathieu Amalric and Emmanuelle Devos. It is in his relation with his actors that Deplechin’s craft shows all of his uniqueness, his Festival Participation/Awards: actors being regularly the recipients of the most prestigious Cannes IFF awards: César for the most promising actor for Emmanuel Salinger in LA SENTINELLE and for Mathieu Amalric in Arnaud Desplechin COMMENT JE ME SUIS DISPUTE, César for the best actor for Mathieu Amalric in ROIS ET REINE, César for the best supporting actor for Jean-Paul Roussillon in UN CONTE DE NOEL and the 61st Cannes IFF special award for Catherine Deneuve in UN CONTE DE NOEL.

Filmography: 1991 LA VIE DES MORTS, short 1992 THE SENTINEL 2012 JIMMY P. (PSYCHOTHERAPY OF A PLAINS INDIAN) 1996 MY SEX LIFE... OR HOW I GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT 2000 ESTHER KAHN 2003 PLAYING “IN THE COMPANY OF MEN” 2004 KINGS AND QUEEN 2007 THE BELOVED 2008 A CHRISTMAS TALE

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

MY MOTHER MIA MADRE

DIRECTED BY: Nanni Moretti WRITTEN BY: Nanni Moretti, Francesco Piccolo & Valia Santella PRODUCED BY: Nanni Moretti & Domenico Procacci DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Arnaldo Catinari EDITOR: Clelio Benevento

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Paola Bizzarri COSTUME DESIGNER: Valentina Taviani SOUND DESIGNER: Alessandro Zanon MAIN CAST: Margherita Buy (Margherita), John Turturro (Barry), Giulia Lazzarini (mother), Nanni Moretti (Giovanni)

Margherita is a director shooting a film with the famous American actor Barry Huggins who is quite a headache on set. Away from the shoot, Margherita tries to hold her life together, despite her mother’s illness and her daughter’s adolescence. Production: Fandango srl Domenico Procacci Viale Gorizia 19 00198 Roma ITALY raffaella.digiulio@fandango.it tel: +39 06 85 21 81 55

Sacher Film Nanni Moretti Via Raffaello Giovagnoli 6 00152 Roma ITALY sacherfilm@sacherfilm.eu tel: +39 06 57 45 353

World Sales: Films Distribution François Yon 36, rue du Louvre 75001 Paris FRANCE fry@filmsdistribution.com tel: +33 1 53 10 33 93

Press: GuidiLocurcio Via Cimabue, 2 00196 Roma ITALY info@guidilocurcio.it tel: +39 06 45 66 43 66

SELECTION

Italy, France 104 min.

MY MOTHER Festival Participation/Awards: Cannes IFF FF Ghent Jerusalem IFF New Horizons FF New York FF Odessa FF Shanghai FF Toronto IFF DAVID DI DONATELLO Awards: Best Actress & Supporting Actress

Nanni Moretti

Filmography: 1973 LA SCONFITTA, short 1973 PATÉ DE BOURGEOIS, short 1976 I AM SELF SUFFICIENT 1978 ECCE BOMBO 1981 SOGNI D’ORO 1984 BIANCA 1985 THE MASS IS ENDED 1989 RED WOOD PIGEON 1990 THE THING, doc 1993 DEAR DIARY 1994 L’UNICO PAESE AL MONDO, short 1995 OPENING DAY OF CLOSE-UP, short 1998 APRILE 2001 THE SON’S ROOM 2003 THE LAST CUSTOMER, short 2006 THE CAIMAN 2007 DIARIO DI UNO SPETTATORE, short 2011 WE HAVE A POPE

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

NO ONE`S CHILD NIČIJE DETE

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Vuk Ršumović PRODUCED BY: Miroslav Mogorović DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Damjan Radovanović EDITOR: Mirko Bojović PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Jelena Sopić COSTUME DESIGNER: Maja Mirković

SOUND DESIGNER: Dubravka Premar ORIGINAL SCORE: Jura Ferina & Pavao Miholjević ANIMATION: Vladan Đurić MAIN CAST: Denis Murić (Pucke), Pavle Čemerikić (Žika), Miloš Timotijević (Ilke), Isidora Janković (Alisa)

In the spring of 1988 a wild boy is found deep in the Bosnian mountains living amongst wolves. He is randomly given the name Haris and sent to an orphanage in Belgrade to be taken care of by Ilke. He becomes inseparable with another boy, Žika, and slowly starts to show progress. In 1992, after he became a fairly socialised young man, local authorities force him to go back to war-torn Bosnia. The film is based on a true story. Production: Art&Popcorn Miroslav Mogorović Dečanska 12 11000 Belgrade SERBIA info@artandpopcorn.com tel: +381 11 26 72 004

World Sales: Soul Food Films Sonja Topalović Pariske komune 13 11070 Belgrade SERBIA info@artandpopcorn.com tel: +381 11 26 72 004

Press: Digimedia PR Aleksandar Pavlić Humska 16 11000 Belgrade SERBIA aleksandar.pavlic@digimedia-pr.com tel: +381659302222

SELECTION

Serbia, Croatia 92 min.

NO ONE`S CHILD Festival Participation/Awards: Bratislava IFF Cairo IFF: Best Film FEST Belgrade IFF: Victor for Best Film goEast Wiesbaden Gothenburg IFF Istanbul IFF Palm Springs IFF: New Voices/ New Visions Award Sarajevo FF Shanghai IFF Sofia IFF Venice IFF: FIPRESCI Award for Best Film & FEDEORA for Best Script Zagreb FF

Vuk Ršumović

Director’s Statement: This is a story about a desire to be loved and to belong. Told from the perspective of a feral boy confronting civilization for the first time, it raises fundamental questions of human nature: what makes us human and what turns us into beasts. Since the beginning of time, there have been myths about abandoned children growing up in the wild. What makes this story unique is its context, defined by the bloody war in Europe and the Balkans at the end of the 20th century. A war which had great impact on my childhood and the life of my generation. For that reason, if nothing else, I sympathize with the main character and his fate. Vuk Ršumović Born in Belgrade in 1975, he studied writing for film, theatre, TV and radio at the Faculty of Drama Arts in Belgrade. He also studied Analytical Psychology. He wrote screenplays for documentaries, fiction series, animation and short feature films. Additional to his film and TV experience, he works as a dramaturg in major Serbian theatres. In 2007, he established the film production company BaBoon Production which produced several short films and documentaries. NO ONE’S CHILD is his directorial debut.

Filmography: 1997 False Hitchhike, short 1998 Elevator Music, short 1999 Three Point Shot, short 2000 Natalia, short 2001 Happy New..., short 2002 Shopping & Fucking, short 2003 Ok, Let’s Start From the Beginning, short 2004 Freefall, short 2005 Bunker, short 2006 Horror – The Story of the First Serbian Vampire, doc. 2012 VALTER, doc. 2013 The Bag, short

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

PADDINGTON WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Paul King PRODUCED BY: David Heyman DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Erik Wilson EDITOR: Mark Everson PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Gary Williamson COSTUME DESIGNER: Lindy Hemming

SOUND DESIGNER: Glenn Freemantle MAIN CAST: Hugh Bonneville (Henry Brown), Sally Hawkins (Mary Brown), Julie Walters (Mrs. Bird), Jim Broadbent (Mr. Gruber), Peter Capaldi (Mr. Curry), Nicole Kidman (Millicent), Ben Whishaw (Paddington)

The story follows the comic misadventures of a young Peruvian bear with a passion for all things British who travels to London in search of a home. Finding himself lost and alone at Paddington Station, he begins to realize that city life is not all he had imagined - until he meets the kindly Brown family who read the label around his neck (‘Please look after this bear. Thank you.’) and offer him a temporary haven. It looks as though his luck has changed until this rarest of bears catches the eye of a museum taxidermist... Press: STUDIOCANAL Katie Paxton 50 Marshall Street W1F 9BQ London UK katie.paxton@studiocanal.co.uk tel: +44 207 534 17 00

SELECTION

UK, France 95 min.

Â www.paddington.com/gb/the-movie/

PADDINGTON

Paul King

Filmography: 2005 Outtakes, short 2005 Boosh Music, short 2009 BUNNY AND THE BULL 2009 The Mighty Boosh Live: Future Sailors Tour

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

PEACE TO US IN OUR DREAMS WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Sharunas Bartas PRODUCED BY: Jurga Dikciuviene DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Eitvydas Doshkus EDITOR: Gintare Sokelyte PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Julija Matulyte & Audrius Dumyka COSTUME DESIGNER: Agnija Vitkovskaya

SOUND DESIGNER: Sigitas Motoras, Benjamin Laurent, Daniel Gries, Vladimir Golovnitskiy, Jean-Guy Véran ORIGINAL SCORE: Alexander Zekke ANIMATION: Vladan Đurić MAIN CAST: Lora Kmieliauskaite (wife), Sharunas Bartas (husband), Ina Marija Bartaite (daughter)

On a summer day, a man, his daughter and his companion arrive at their country house to spend the weekend. The daughter has just moved in with her father, whose attention she desires. The man is tired of his life, and does not know where to find the strength to carry on living. The woman, a violinist, is confused in her priorities - music, love or career. Production: Kino electron Janja Kralj 1/3 rue d’Enghien 75010 Paris FRANCE info@kinoelectron.com tel: +33 1 85 08 35 61

World Sales: NDM International sales Fiorella Moretti Sultepec 47, Colonia Hipódromo Condesa, Delegación Cuauhtémoc 06170 Mexico City MEXICO fm@mantarraya.com tel: +52 555 273 02 30

SELECTION

Lithuania, France, Russia 107 min.

PEACE TO US IN OUR DREAMS

Festival Participation/Awards: Cannes IFF

Sharunas Bartas

Sharunas Bartas Born in 1964 in Siauliau, Lithuania, Sharunas Bartas graduated from VGIK film school in Moscow. In 1989, he founded Studio Kinema, the first independent studio in Lithuania. From early on, Sharunas Bartas met great critical success. His films such as THREE DAYS, CORRIDOR, FEW OF US, all built an uncommonly delicate aesthetic that his eighth Filmography: feature, PEACE TO US IN OUR DREAMS keeps on expanding. 1992 THREE DAYS 1995 THE CORRIDOR 1996 FEW OF US 1997 THE HOUSE 2000 FREEDOM 2005 SEVEN INVISIBLE MEN 2010 EASTERN DRIFT

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

RAMS HRÚTAR

SOUND DESIGNER: Huldar Freyr Arnarson & Björn Viktorsson ORIGINAL SCORE: Atli Örvarsson MAIN CAST: Sigurđur Sigurjónsson (Gummi), Theodór Júlíusson (Kiddi)

stills: Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, portrait: Brynjar Snaer

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Grímur Hákonarson PRODUCED BY: Grímar Jónsson DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Sturla Brandth Grøvlen EDITOR: Kristján Lođmfjörđ PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Bjarni Massi Sigurbjörnsson

In a secluded valley in Iceland, Gummi and Kiddi live side by side, tending to their sheep. Their ancestral sheep-stock is considered one of the country’s best and the two brothers are repeatedly awarded for their prized rams who carry an ancient lineage. Although they share the land and a way of life, Gummi and Kiddi have not spoken to each other in four decades. Production: Netop Films EHF. Thingholtsstræti 23, 101 Reykjavik ICELAND grimar@netopfilms.com tel: +354 69 595 22

World Sales: New Europe Film Sales Jan Naszewski Czerniakowska 73/79 00-781 Warszawa POLAND jan@neweuropefilmsales.com tel: +48 600 17 32 05

SELECTION

Iceland, Denmark 93 min.

www.neweuropefilmsales.com/movies/85

RAMS

Festival Participation/Awards: When a lethal disease suddenly infects Kiddi’s sheep, the Karlovy Vary IFF entire valley comes under threat. The authorities decide Transilvania IFF to cull all the animals in the area to contain the outbreak. This is a near death sentence for the farmers, whose sheep are their main source of income, and many abandon their land. But Gummi and Kiddi don’t give up so easily – and each brother tries to stave off the disaster in his own fashion: Kiddi by using his rifle and Gummi by using his wits. As the authorities close in, the brothers will need to come together to save the special breed passed down for generations, and themselves, from extinction.

Grímur Hákonarson The Icelandic director Grímur Hákonarson, born in 1977, graduated from FAMU - Film Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in 2004. His graduate film, SLAVEK THE SHIT, was the first film that got international attention. It was selected to the Cinefoundation section of Cannes Film Festival 2005 and won 12 festival prizes, including the Silver Hugo at Chicago IFF. His next short film, WRESTLING, premiered in Locarno in 2007 and is one of the most successful short films from Iceland. It won 25 festival prizes around the world.

Grímur Hákonarson Filmography: 2004 SLAVEK THE SHIT, short 2007 WRESTLING, short 2010 SUMMERLAND 2012 A PURE HEART, doc.

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

SCHNEIDER VS. BAX WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Alex van Warmerdam PRODUCED BY: Marc van Warmerdam DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Tom Erisman EDITOR: Job ter Burg PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Geert Paredis COSTUME DESIGNER: Stine Gudmundsen-Holmgreen SOUND DESIGNER: Peter Warnier

ORIGINAL SCORE: Alex van Warmerdam MAIN CAST: Tom Dewispelaere (Schneider), Alex van Warmerdam (Bax), Maria Kraakman (Francisca), Gene Bervoets (Mertens), Annet Malherbe (Gina), Loes Haverkort (Lucy), Eva van de Wijdeven (Nadine), Henri Garcin (Gerard), Pierre Bokma (Bolek)

Schneider, a hit man, gets a call from Mertens on the morning of his birthday. He has a rush job for Schneider who refuses it, because it is his birthday and he has promised Lucy, his wife, to help her with the preparations for the dinner party. Mertens insists that it is an important matter. When they meet in Mertens’ office, Schneider is told that the target is Ramon Bax, a writer. He lives alone in a secluded place. “It’s an easy job. With a little luck you’re back home before noon.” Schneider accepts the assignment. What seems to be a simple job turns out to be more than expected. Production: Graniet Film Marc van Warmerdam Archangelkade 15 1013 BE Amsterdam THE NETHERLANDS marc@granietfilm.nl tel: +31 20 60 60 630

World Sales: Fortissimo Films Nelleke Driessen Van Diemenstraat 100 1013 CN Amsterdam THE NETHERLANDS info@fortissimo.nl tel: +31 20 62 73 215

SELECTION

Netherlands, Belgium 96 min.

www.imdb.com/title/tt3430416/combined

SCHNEIDER VS. BAX

Festival Participation/Awards: BFI London FF Locarno IFF Toronto IFF

Alex van Warmerdam

portrait: Koen Broos

Alex van Warmerdam Polymath Alex van Warmerdam (also writer, painter, designer, composer) was born in the Dutch city of Haarlem in 1952. He studied Graphic Design and Painting at Amsterdam’s Gerrit Rietveld Academy before he co-founded the music theatre company Hauser Orkater (1972) and The Mexican Hound Theatre Company (1980) with his brother Marc. Between 1978 and 1984 he shot a short film and two TV films before making his feature debut ABEL (1986), which won the Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival. In 1992 he made the feature THE NORTHERNERS, which picked up three EFAs, then called Felix (for best film, music and art direction). THE DRESS (1996), which sold to more than 25 territories, won the FIPRESCI Award at Venice and the Dutch Film Critics’ Award at the Netherlands Film Festival. Success continued with LITTLE TONY (1998) which was selected for Un Certain Regard at Cannes. GRIMM (2003) was selected for San Sebastian and Riga, while WAITER (2006) won both public and critical acclaim at international festivals including Toronto. THE LAST DAYS OF EMMA BLANK won Best European Film at Venice, the Best Screenplay Award at the Netherlands FF and Best Film at the IFF Albania. His most recent thriller, BORGMAN (2013), was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, screened in the Vanguard section at Toronto, and was the Dutch entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards.

Filmography: 1986 ABEL 1992 THE NORTHENERS 1996 THE DRESS 1998 LITTLE TONY 2003 GRIMM 2006 WAITER 2009 THE LAST DAYS OF EMMA BLANK 2013 BORGMAN

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

TALE OF TALES DIRECTED BY: Matteo Garrone WRITTEN BY: Matteo Garrone, Edoardo Albinati, Ugo Chiti & Massimo Gaudioso PRODUCED BY: Matteo Garrone & Jeremy Thomas DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Peter Suschitzky EDITOR: Marco Spoletini PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Dimitri Capuani COSTUME DESIGNER: Massimo Cantini Parrini

SOUND DESIGNER: Leslie Shatz ORIGINAL SCORE: Alexandre Desplat MAIN CAST: Salma Hayek (Queen of Longtrellis), Vincent Cassel (King of Strongcliff) , Toby Jones (King of Highhills), John C. Reilly (King of Longtrellis), Shirley Henderson (Imma), Hayley Carmichael (Dora), Stacy Martin (young Dora), Bebe Cave (Violet), Christian Lees (Elias), Jonah Lees (Jonah)

From the bitter quest of the Queen of Longtrellis who forfeits the life of her husband, to two mysterious sisters who provoke the passion of the King of Strongcliff, to the King of Highhills obsessed with a giant Flea leading to heartbreak for his young daughter, these stories weave the beautiful with the grotesque, creating a stunning and unique work of gothic imagination. Inspired by the celebrated fairytales by Giambattista Basile. Director’s statement I chose to tackle the universe of Basile because in his tales, I found that blend between the real and fantastic which has always characterised my artistic endeavours. The stories recounted in THE TALE OF TALES cover all of life’s opposites: the ordinary and the extraordinary, the magical and the everyday, the regal and the obscene, the straightforward and the artificial, the sublime and the filthy, the terrible and the tender, scraps of mythology and torrents of popular wisdom. The tales recount human feelings pushed to the extreme. From the first reading of the 50 tales which make up the book, myself and my fellow Production, World Sales & Press: Hanway Films 24 Hanway Street London W1T 1UH UK info@hanwayfilms.com tel: +44 207 290 0750

SELECTION

Italy, UK, France 133 min.

www.imdb.com/title/tt3430416/combined

screenwriters faced numerous choices in choosing the stories that we liked most and then making them credible, concrete, as if we were seeing them take place before our eyes. Our approach was to search for something powerful, physical, shared and authentic, even in the stories in which the imagination was the most fired-up. In Basile’s work, there’s a great pleasure in the narrative, and that should also be a prerogative of cinema. My previous films have been based on true stories, which I transformed to the limits of an almost fantasy dimension. Here, we did the journey in the opposite direction. We were inspired by fabulous situations that were brought on to a realistic basis through a process of subtraction, so the spectator can at each moment feel involved in the story, and become immersed in the adventures of our characters. I would define THE TALE OF TALES as a fantasy book with some touches of horror. In an indirect yet palpable way, these two genres – fantasy and horror – come through and can already be felt in my previous work: in THE EMBALMER and in FIRST LOVE, the horror notes can already be clearly heard; in REALITY, the fairy tale mood inspires the stories as much as the style; and even in GOMORRAH, beyond the realism of the situations, the tone of some episodes is that of a genuine dark fable. When you think about it, THE EMBALMER – which also has some grotesque and poignant aspects – actually resemble one of Basile’s tales: “Once upon a time there was a dwarf who stuffed big animals and who fell in love with a beautiful young man.”

TALE OF TALES

Festival Participation/Awards: Cannes IFF Karlovy Vary IFF Silver Ribbon: Best Production Design, Costume Design & Sound

Matteo Garrone

Filmography: 1996 SILHOUETTE, short 1996 LAND IN BETWEEN Matteo Garrone 2002 THE EMBALMER Born in Rome in 1968, Matteo Garrone obtained his 2004 FIRST LOVE baccalaureate at the Artistic High School in 1986. After 2008 GOMORRAH working as a camera operator assistant, he decided to 2012 REALITY devote himself full-time to painting. In 1996, he won the Best Short Film award at the Sacher Festival with SILHOUETTE. The following year, he founded his own production company, Archimede. His first feature film, TERRA DI MEZZO, won the Special Jury Prize and the Cipputi Prize at the Festival of Youth Cinema in Turin. But it was in 2002, with THE EMBALMER, that he won critical and public acclaim. Presented in the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, the film won two Italian David de Donatello awards, the Nastro d’Argento and the Ciak d’Oro. In 2008, he made Gomorrah, which won the Grand Prix at the Festival de Cannes and five European Film Awards (European Film, Director, Actor, Screenplay and Cinematography).

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT LE TOUT NOUVEAU TESTAMENT DIRECTED BY: Jaco Van Dormael WRITTEN BY: Jaco Van Dormael & Thomas Gunzig PRODUCED BY: Jaco Van Dormael, Olivier Rausin & Daniel Marquet DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Christophe Beaucarne EDITOR: Hervé de Luze PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Sylvie Olivé

COSTUME DESIGNER: Caroline Koener SOUND DESIGNER: Dominique Warnier, François Dumont & Michel Schillings ORIGINAL SCORE: An Pierlé MAIN CAST: Benoît Poelvoorde (God), Catherine Deneuve (Martine), François Damiens (François), Yolande Moreau (God’s wife), Pili Groyne (God’s daughter)

God exists! He lives in Brussels. He’s a real bastard, odious with his wife and daughter. We know a lot about his son, but very little about his daughter. Her name is Ea and she’s ten years old. One day, she revolts against her father, hacks his computer and leaks to the entire world their inevitable date of death by SMS… Production: Terra Incognita Films Jaco Van Dormael Avenue Wolvendael, 63 1180 Brussels BELGIUM deliensmarine@gmail.com tel: +32 2 705 25 20

Climax Films Olivier Rausin Avenue du Japon, 2 1420 Braine-l’Alleud BELGIUM deliensmarine@gmail.com tel: +32 2 705 25 2

Après le Déluge Daniel Marquet Rue des Jeûneurs, 23 75002 Paris FRANCE mathsomb@gmail.com tel: +33 1 47 70 02 34

SELECTION

Belgium, France, Luxembourg 114 min.

www.le-pacte.com/international/new-films/ single/the-brand-new-testament/

picture: Fabrizio Maltese

THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT

Jaco Van Dormael After studying film at the INSAS (Brussels) and the National Film School Louis Lumière (Paris), Jaco Van Dormael started his career as a director of children’s theatre plays. He then began directing short films in the early 1980s, several times awarded in festivals. His first feature film, TOTO THE HERO (1991) received the Camera d’Or at Cannes and an EFA, then called Felix, for Best Young Film, Actor, Screenwriter and Cinematographer. In parallel, Jaco Van Dormael is also a theatre and opera director.

World Sales: Le Pacte Camille Neel Rue Darcet, 5 75017 Paris FRANCE c.neel@le-pacte.com tel: + 33 1 44 69 59 59

Press: Le Pacte Ioana Dragomirescu Rue Darcet, 5 75017 Paris France i.dragomirescu@le-pacte.com Ptel: +33 1 44 69 59 45

Festival Participation/Awards: Athens IFF BFI London FF Cannes IFF New Horizons IFF Hamburg FF Helsinki IFF Karlovy Vary IFF La Rochelle IFF Montreal World FF Motovun FF Mumbai FF Norwegian IFF: Audience Award

Jaco Van Dormael

Filmography: 1980 MAEDELI-LA-BRÈCHE, short 1981 STADE 81, short 1981 LES VOISINS, short 1982 L’IMITATEUR, short 1983 SORTIE DE SECOURS, short 1984 E PERICOLOSO SPORGERSI, short 1985 DE BOOT, short 1991 TOTO THE HERO 1996 THE EIGHTH DAY 2009 MR. NOBODY 2010 EOLE, short

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Peter Strickland PRODUCED BY: Andy Starke DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Nic Knowland BSC EDITOR: Mátyás Fekete PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Pater Sparrow

COSTUME DESIGNER: Andrea Flesch SOUND DESIGNER: Martin Pavey ORIGINAL SCORE: Cat’s Eyes MAIN CAST: Sidse Babett Knudsen (Cynthia), Chiara D’Anna (Evelyn), Monica Swinn (Lorna)

Cynthia and Evelyn love each other. Day after day the couple act out a simple ritual that ends in Evelyn’s punishment, but Cynthia yearns for a more conventional relationship. Evelyn’s obsession quickly becomes an addiction that pushes their relationship to breaking point. Director’s Statement: THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY takes place in an unnamed European city in an unspecified time. This script is a story about all relationships and how one is expected to conform to an image the other person has of them. Whether it’s merely the pressure of being the decision-maker in daily life or having to act out roles in the bedroom, we can relate to both the pressure of living up to someone else’s image of us and conversely, our needs for our loved ones to conform to our own expectations, no matter how innocent they may be. THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY takes this to an extreme level within the context of a sado-masochistic relationship, as we see how the submissive Evelyn dominates her older lover, Cynthia. From this, the different layers of Cynthia’s identity gradually unfold throughout the film; we constantly reassess her role within the relationship as she shifts from heartless ice queen to consenting lover to controlled victim. The nature of performance is also a huge part of the film, in which two people agree to take on roles and re-enact the same scenarios again and again. Even movements are stipulated by the use of marker tape on the floor. Despite repeating the same lines, Cynthia’s performance as a cruel and dominant woman changes each time we see it and more is revealed about the dynamic within the relationship. The Production: Rook Films Andy Starke c/o Protagonist Picutures W1N 7NB London UK festivals@protagonistpictures.com tel: +44 207 734 900

World Sales: Protagonist Pictures Vanessa Saal 42-48 Great Portland Street W1N 7NB London UK vanessa@protagonistpictures.com tel: +44 207 734 900

Press: Protagonist Pictures Bridget Pedgrift 42-48 Great Portland Street W1N 7NB London UK bridget@protagonistpictures.com tel: +44 207 734 900

SELECTION

UK, Hungary 104 min.

Peter Strickland UK born writer/director Peter Strickland’s first feature film KATALIN VARGA was funded and produced independently over a four-year period. The micro-budget rural revenge drama went on to win numerous awards including a Silver Bear in Berlin and the European Film Academy’s Discovery of the Year award in 2009. Strickland followed KATALIN VARGA with BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO in 2012, which was produced by Illuminations and Warp X and funded by Film4, UK Film Council, Match Factory and Screen Yorkshire. The film was distributed internationally and won several awards, including four at the 2012 British Independent Film Awards including Best Director and Best Actor. The film was named British Film of the Year at the 2012 London Critics’ Circle Film Awards. Prior to KATALIN VARGA, Strickland made a number of short films including BUBBLEGUM, (which starred Warhol superstar, Holly Woodlawn) and A METAPHYSICAL EDUCATION. He also founded The Sonic Catering Band in 1996, which has released several records and performed live throughout Europe. Since 1999, he has released over twenty records through his Peripheral Conserve label. The label’s output varies from field recordings to sound poetry, Krautrock and modern classical in very limited vinyl editions.

THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY

Festival Participation/Awards: BFI London FF Hong Kong IFF IFF Rotterdam Mar del Plata IFF Rotterdam IFF Thessaloniki IFF Torino FF Toronto IFF Vienna IFF

Peter Strickland

portrait: Daniel Gasenzer

same words and scenarios are adhered to, but the more we know about the characters, the more we perceive each time a role is re-enacted. By the end of the film, instead of sounding cold and in control, Cynthia’s voice quivers leaving her sounding vulnerable and on the point of breakdown. The starting point was to see how the disreputable genre of 70s erotic cinema could be resuscitated. Jess Franco’s films in particular struck me as being rich in atmosphere, intensity and sexual fever and I wanted to use some of his films as a starting point for a torrid love story. The loose plan was not only to use his films as a model, but also his manner of working – to do something very quickly and cheaply with not many actors or locations. At the same time, it was important to avoid copying, hence the avoidance of nudity or any clichés normally associated with sado-masochism. Many parts of the film are explicit, yet never in the conventional sense. The most essential aspect of the film is its dreamy, post-orgasmic flow. One feels as if the film itself is a spell of sorts that Evelyn is under. Being under that spell is what she’s addicted to.

Filmography: 1996 BUBBLEGUM, short 2004 A METAPHYSICAL EDUCATION, short 2009 KATALIN VARGA 2012 BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THE FAREWELL PARTY ‫הבוט התימ‬‎ (MITA TOVA)

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Tal Granit & Sharon Maymon PRODUCED BY: Haim Mecklberg, Estee Yacov-Mecklberg, Talia Kleinhendler, Osnat Handelsman-Keren & Thanassis Karathanos DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Tobias Hochstein EDITOR: Einat Glaser-Zarhin PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Arad Sawat

COSTUME DESIGNER: Laura Sheim SOUND DESIGNER: Aviv Aldema ORIGINAL SCORE: Avi Belleli MAIN CAST: Ze’ev Revach (Yehezkel), Levana Finkelstein (Levana), Aliza Rozen (Yana), Ilan Dar (Dr. Daniel), Raffi Tavor (Raffi Segal)

Yehezkel, 72, lives in a retirement home in Jerusalem with his wife Levana. Yehezkel is the resident inventor, always coming up with new and original ways of making everyone’s life a little easier. When his best friend Max, who is suffering from a terminal illness, asks Yehezkel to help him end his life, he feels compelled to help his friend die in peace. Together with a retired veterinarian, who brings the tranquilizers, and a former police detective to clean up the evidence, he tries to figure out the best way to put Max to rest. The thing is no one in the group can bring themselves to actually kill Max, so Yehezkel invents a “Euthanasia Machine” which will allow Max to press the button himself, and fulfil his own wish to die with dignity. Levana, Yehezkel’s wife, does everything she can to stop them, but Yehezkel goes behind her back, and together the group of friends help Max end his suffering. When Levana, who suffers from early stage Alzheimer’s, realises what they’ve done she calls them all murderers, and wants nothing to do with them. Meanwhile word of the machine begins to leak out, and old people from all over Jerusalem come to the retirement home looking for a way to end the suffering of their loved ones. They Production: 2-Team Productions Haim Mecklberg 12 Rival Street 6777847 Tel Aviv ISRAEL office@2teamproductions.com tel: +972 3 687 5111

World Sales: Beta Cinema Thorsten Ritter Gruenwalder Weg 28d 82041 Oberhaching GERMANY thorsten.ritter@betacinema.com tel: +49 89 673469 29

SELECTION

Israel, Germany 95 min.

www.2teamproductions.com/en/productions/ completed/the-farewell-party-film-page/

beg Yehezkel and his friends to help them. The group resists at first, but finally they find themselves in the euthanasia “business”, granting people their last wish to die in peace. Yehezkel is so distracted by all this that he refuses to realise that Levana’s condition is deteriorating, despite her increasingly erratic behaviour. But Levana realises she’s one step away from not knowing her own granddaughter and as she begins to consider her own situation she starts to understand that she may have misjudged her husband and her friends.

THE FAREWELL PARTY

Festival Participation/Awards: CPH:PIX Haifa IFF: NU Image Award for Best Actress Hong Kong IFF Istanbul IFF Rotterdam IFF Seattle IFF Taipei FF Toronto IFF Director’s Statement: Valladolid IFF: Golden Spike for Best “For against your will you are formed, against your will you Film; Best Actress are born, against your will you live” (“Ethics of the Fathers”, Venice IFF: BNL People’s Choice Award, chapter 4). Can you at least determine when to die? Brian Award THE FAREWELL PARTY deals with separation. Separation from someone you love, separation from yourself - when the Israeli Film Academy Awards: Best Actor, mind begins to fail, and the separation from life and the right Cinematography, Make-up & Sound to choose how it all ends. The main characters are senior citizens, in a retirement Sharon Maymon & Tal Granit community in Jerusalem, people who have retired from their life’s work – these types of people are not usually heroes of movies. But out of that very place of retirement and inactivity, they decide to gain control over their fate. As in any tragedy where the protagonist tries to change his destiny and of those surrounding him, there is an unbearable price to pay. THE FAREWELL PARTY is also a film about love and friendship. Our five main characters find comfort, strength and hope in each other in the difficult and funniest moments of life. The plot is not autobiographical, but is based on personal Filmography Sharon Maymon: experiences accumulated while caring for a ‘Helga’; someone 1998 DO YOU LOVE ME?, short close to us, towards the end of their life. In our process of 2000 HOLES, short saying goodbye to a loved one, we discovered that when the 2006 MORTGAGE body fails and the mind remains lucid, self-irony and humour 2009 A MATTER OF SIZE remain the best way to cope with the prospect of death. 2009 TO KILL A BUMBLEBEE In our films we try to deal with contemporary social issues, 2012 SUMMER VACATION which are often controversial. We try to break the emotional drama with absurd and comic elements. We do so also Filmography Tal Granit: by casting comedians and in the case of this film some of 2000 SHELY’S OCEAN, short the icons of Israeli comedy, in dramatic roles. We feel this 2001 NIGHT PICTURE, short makes this difficult and important issue more accessible to 2001 ILANA’S COMING! our audience, and hopefully, as in life, they will laugh as they 2006 MORTGAGE wipe away their tears. 2009 TO KILL A BUMBLEBEE 2012 SUMMER VACATION

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THE HERE AFTER EFTERSKALV / INTRUZ

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Magnus von Horn PRODUCED BY: Mariusz Włodarski & Madeleine Ekman DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Łukasz Żal EDITOR: Agnieszka Glińska PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Jagna Dobesz & Henrik Ryhlander

COSTUME DESIGNER: Anna-Karin Cameron SOUND DESIGNER: Michał Robaczewski MAIN CAST: Loa Ek (Malin), Wiesław Komasa (grandfather), Ulrik Munther (John), Mats Blomgren (Martin)

When John returns home to his father after serving time in prison, he is looking forward to starting his life afresh. However in the local community, his crime is neither forgotten nor forgiven. John’s presence brings out the worst in everyone around him and a lynch-mob atmosphere slowly takes shape. Feeling abandoned by his former friends and the people he loves, John loses hope and the same aggressions that previously sent him to prison start building up again. Unable to leave the past behind, he decides to confront it. Production: Lava Films sp. z o.o. Gandhiego 7/30 91-012 Łódź POLAND lava@lavafilms.pl tel: +48 50 60 61 974

Zentropa International Sweden Åkerssjövägen 4 461 53 Trollhättan SWEDEN madeleine.ekman@filmbyen.dk tel: +46-520 50 55 22

World Sales: Trust Nordisk Filmbyen 22 2650 Hvidovre DENMARK info@trustnordisk.com tel: +45 36868788

SELECTION

Poland, Sweden, France 101 min.

www.the-here-after.com

Director’s Statement: I came up with the idea for THE HERE AFTER when I was preparing for my exam film, WITHOUT SNOW at the Polish film school in Lodz. I was reading documents from police investigations of crimes committed by teenagers. Among these documents I came across a story that particularly moved me: a fifteen-year-old boy had killed his girlfriend because he couldn’t stand the fact that she had fallen in love with someone else. In-between the lines of his confession I felt that behind the awful act there was actually a shy, young boy. He admitted to the crime but had no idea how he could actually have done something so horrifying. He was frightened, unhappily in love and tried to make amends for his crime while not being emotionally prepared for it at all. That was the inspiration for our film. To me, the essence of THE HERE AFTER is the story of a boy who after having committed murder and served his punishment is released back into society when he is still a child. He wants to move on but the people surrounding him are unable to let him do so. It’s a tale about emotionally disconnected people. A quiet, dormant illness present in society and that has been passed down from generation to generation in the protagonist’s family. Finally it found an outlet in the killing of a young girl. Everyone carries a blame inside, but admitting to it would mean taking on a responsibility which cannot be avoided; a failure, which cannot be washed off.

THE HERE AFTER

Magnus von Horn Born in 1983 in Göteborg, Sweden, Magnus von Horn lives in Warsaw, Poland. He completed the MA programme of film directing at the Polish National Film School in Lodz. During his studies he made several successful short films. With his film ECHO he was in the official short film competition of Sundance 2010 and with WITHOUT SNOW opened the Pardi di Domani section in Locarno in 2011. His debut feature film THE HERE AFTER had its world premiere at Directors’ Fortnight Cannes 2015.

Festival Participation/Awards: Cannes IFF Era New Horizons IFF Karlovy Vary IFF European FF Palić: Tower for Best Director La Rochelle IFF Reykjavik IFF Toronto IFF

Magnus von Horn

Filmography: 2007 RADEK, short 2008 ECHO, short 2011 WITHOUT SNOW, short

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THE HIGH SUN ZVIZDAN

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Dalibor Matanić PRODUCED BY: Ankica Jurić Tilić, Petra Vidmar, Nenad Dukić DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Marko Brdar EDITOR: Tomislav Pavlic PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Mladen Ožbolt COSTUME DESIGNER: Ana Savić Gecan

SOUND DESIGNER: Julij Zornik ORIGINAL SCORE: Alen Sinkauz & Nenad Sinkauz MAIN CAST: Tihana Lazović (Jelena/Nataša/Marija), Goran Marković (Ivan/Ante/Luka), Nives Ivanković (Jelena’s/ Nataša’s mother), Trpimir Jurkić (Ivan’s/Luka’s father), Dado Ćosić (Saša)

THE HIGH SUN shines a light on three love stories, set in three consecutive decades, in two neighboring Balkan villages with a long history of inter-ethnic hatred. It is a film about the fragility – and intensity – of forbidden love. In the first story, set in 1991, a romantic attraction is forced underground when love becomes a forbidden luxury in the pre-war atmosphere of madness, confusion and fear. In the second story, set in 2001, the war is over but the lovers find it impossible to turn their infatuation into an ongoing relationship: the scars of the war are still too fresh and cannot heal that easily. The third story takes place in 2011, when love can finally take root, if the lovers can break free of the past. Evil and suspicion have not completely vanished from their lives and catharsis is not easy to achieve, but it is possible once again. Director’s Statement: As a filmmaker, I have long been intrigued by the ever-present inter-ethnic hatred in the Balkan region, and conflicts rooted in war, religion or politics. With this film, I wanted to explore three separate stories of a Croatian boy and a girl from a Serbian family, across three Production & Press: Kinorama Ankica Jurić Tilić Štoosova 25 10000 Zagreb CROATIA ankica@kinorama.hr tel: +385 98 465 576

World Sales: Cercamon Sebastien Chesneau Majara 1 Dubai Marina , #903 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES sebastien@cercamon.biz tel: +971 566 063 824

SELECTION

Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia 123 min. decades. The stories all take place in the same location, in the sun-scorched villages, and the young lovers are always in their early twenties. Using the lens of these three stories, I wanted to tease out the accumulated atmosphere of evil that smoulders among the damaged communities in this region. I am by no means the only one who thinks that in our young century, the problem of hatred towards “the other” is particularly serious, worrying, and actually alarmingly dangerous. There is no shortage of examples – Islamophobia, neo-Nazism, chauvinism, racism, and the rejection of previously accepted immigrant groups. I believe that there is no better way to make a film about this subject than by making a love story, and by contrasting intolerance with acceptance, and fear and hatred with hope, forgiveness and love. I have always wanted to make a film that would act as a mirror for all of us in these regions; that would bring us face to face with the moments when we allowed ourselves to act, not as ordinary decent people, but as a community controlled by darker, pre-conditioned urges. I want to show what happened when people followed a path that led to shameful euphoria in the short term, but that ultimately caused deep unhappiness and unnecessary suffering. THE HIGH SUN celebrates selflessness and love – the very best of human nature that is still struggling to re-emerge victorious in our region. Because there is one thing I am sure about: at the end of the day, politics and extreme nationalism never win. Love does. Dalibor Matanić Dalibor Matanić was born in Zagreb in 1975. He holds a degree in Film and Television Directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. He made his award-winning feature debut THE CASHIER WANTS TO GO TO THE SEASIDE in 2000, based on his own screenplay. His second feature, FINE DEAD GIRLS, won the Grand Prix, Audience Award and Critics’ Award at the national film festival in 2002. Other features include 100 MINUTES OF GLORY; KINO LIKA (awarded at Montpelier 2008, Alexandria, Noordelijk Film Festival, Festival del cinema Europeo and Pula Film Festival, and screened at thirty other film festivals); I LOVE YOU, MOTHER OF ASPHALT (Grand Prix and two other awards at FIPA Biarritz), DADDY and HANDYMEN. One of his most successful works is his short PARTY (Tulum) that premiered at Cannes’ Critics’ Week in 2009, and later won 18 film awards at national and international festivals.

THE HIGH SUN

Festival Participation/Awards: Cannes IFF: Un Certain Regard - Jury Prize Karlovy Vary IFF Melbourne IFF Motovun FF Odessa IFF Pula FF: National competition - Grand Prix, Best Director, Lead Actress, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Costume Design & Critic’s Award Sarajevo FF

Dalibor Matanić

Filmography: 2000 THE CASHIER WANTS TO GO TO THE SEASIDE 2002 FINE DEAD GIRLS 2004 100 MINUTES OF GLORY 2009 THE PARTY, short 2009 KINO LIKA 2010 MOTHER OF ASPHALT 2011 DADDY 2013 HANDYMEN

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THE LESSON UROK

WRITTEN, DIRECTED & PRODUCED BY: Petar Valchanov & Kristina Grozeva DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Krum Rodriguez EDITOR: Petar Valchanov PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Vanina Geleva

COSTUME DESIGNER: Kristina Tomova SOUND DESIGNER: Dobromir Hristoskov & Vesselin Zografov MAIN CAST: Margita Gosheva (Nadezhda), Ivan Burnev (Mladen), Ivan Savov (Stoyan), Deya Todorova (Deya), Stefan Denolyubov (the loan shark)

Nadezhda warns her students that the school thief is in her sights. She declares that once she catches him his classmates will get their breakfast money back, and she’ll teach him a “good lesson”. On her return home, Nadezhda is surprised by another problem - an officer of the court threatens her with foreclosure. Her husband has missed several loan repayments for the cargo truck he bought intending to repair it and sell it. Now the entire loan has to be paid immediately so Nadezdha borrows money from a loan shark expecting to return it upon the sale of the truck. But time flies and the truck is beyond repair. There’s no way to pay back the loan shark, and he starts pressuring Nadezhda. She scrambles for money, but to no avail. The truck, the house, her mother’s golden tooth crowns – nothing is enough. The loan shark threatens to hurt her child if she doesn’t find the cash. Terrified and desperate, Nadezhda robs a bank. She pays back the loan shark. And she finds out who the school robber is. But now she has no idea what kind of lesson to teach him. Production: Abraxas Film ltd. Petar Valchanov bl. 21, entr. B, app. 11 1345 Sofia BULGARIA abraxasfilm@abv.bg tel: +359 88 412 07 75

World Sales: Wide Management Loic Magneron 9 rue bleue 75009 Paris FRANCE infos@widemanagement.com tel: +33 1 53 95 04 64

SELECTION

Bulgaria, Greece 107 min.

THE LESSON Directors’ Statement: Several years ago TV reported that a woman robbed a bank in a small provincial Bulgarian town. Everybody suspected that she was a junkie, a criminal ... Nobody suspected that the bank robber was a decent school teacher with two master’s degrees. The way it sounded - “Teacher robbed a bank!!!” was precisely the contradiction within this phrase that made us look behind the tabloid sensation. This event from our reality left a deep trace in us and made us ask ourselves - what makes a decent person become a criminal? We wanted to tell the story harshly, as a part of life. We strived to be real to the extreme, to create a painfully authentic film story. We got deep into the teacher’s inner world, we tackled her inner conflicts, her fight with her own morality. One of the main tasks for us as directors was to develop rich and deep human personalities. Together with the DoP Krum Rodriguez we decided that the camera had to be unnoticed and contemplative, to look carefully in the details and the action, without being obvious. The film was shot in a real provincial town. Most of the small parts were played by real people, not actors. Our main actors had to blend in naturally, they had to partner with the non-professionals, and their performances had to be as authentic and real as possible. Our goal was that the audience wouldn’t be able to tell an actor from a non-actor in the finished film. Margita Gosheva is a real discovery for us in this sense. After she read the script we changed some lines and situations, but the main work was done on set when she was put in the real situations with the real class of 30 children. The sense of authenticity and real life was leading in each element make-up, costumes, set design, light and sound. In the beginning we started shooting just different episodes of the film as a teaser while we were trying to find money for the production, but the cast and crew were so inspired by the story that they didn’t want to stop until we had finished the last shot. Everyone worked for deferred payments and we are truly thankful to the cast and crew who were fully devoted to the filmmaking process despite the minimal time we had for the shooting, and the difficult conditions we were working in due to our micro-budget. The film didn’t receive production funding by the Bulgarian Film Center - just like our previous film, JUMP.

Festival Participation/Awards: CPH:PIX goEast Wiesbaden Gothenburg IFF: Ingmar Bergman Award for Best Debut Film Helsinki IFF Hong Kong IFF Istanbul IFF Jerusalem IFF Karlovy Vary IFF Moscow IFF Palm Springs IFF Premier Plans Angers FF Reykjavik IFF Rotterdam IFF San Sebastian IFF: Kutxa New Directors’ Award Shanghai IFF Sofia IFF Tokyo IFF: Special Jury Prize Toronto IFF Venice IFF Warsaw FF: 1-2 Competition Award

Kristina Grozeva & Petar Valchanov

Filmography Kristina Grozeva: 2007 GAME, short 2008 BIRDS OF HEAVEN 2009 GAP 2012 JUMP, short Filmography Petar Valchanov: 2001 SHOCK, short 2003 RESURRECTION, short 2005 CAPTURED, short 2008 FAMILY THERAPY, short 2012 JUMP, short

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THE LOBSTER COSTUME DESIGNER: Sarah Blenkinsop SOUND DESIGNER: Johnnie Burn MAIN CAST: Colin Farrell (David), Rachel Weisz (short-sighted woman), LĂŠa Seydoux (Loner Leader), Ashley Jensen (biscuit woman), Ben Whishaw (the limping man), John C. Reilly (lisping man), Olivia Colman (hotel manager)

stills: Despina Spyrou

DIRECTED BY: Yorgos Lanthimos WRITTEN BY: Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou PRODUCED BY: Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday, Ceci Dempsey & Yorgos Lanthimos DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Thimios Bakatakis EDITOR: Yorgos Mavropsaridis PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Jacqueline Abrahams

A love story set in the near future where single people, according to the rules of The City, are arrested and transferred to The Hotel. There they are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days. If they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choosing and released into The Woods. A desperate Man escapes from The Hotel to The Woods where The Loners live and falls in love, although it is against their rules. Production: Element Pictures c/o Protagonist Pictures 42-48 Great Portland Street W1N 7NB London UK festivals@protagonistpictures.com tel: +44 207 734 900

World Sales: Protagonist Pictures Vanessa Saal 42-48 Great Portland Street W1N 7NB London UK vanessa@protagonistpictures.com tel: +44 207 734 900

SELECTION

UK, Ireland, Greece, France, Netherlands 118 min.

THE LOBSTER

Yorgos Lanthimos Yorgos Lanthimos was born in Athens, Greece. He has directed a number of dance videos in collaboration with Greek choreographers, in addition to TV commercials, music videos, short films and theatre plays. KINETTA, his first feature film, played at Toronto and Berlin film festivals to critical acclaim. His second feature DOGTOOTH, won the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2009 Cannes IFF, followed by numerous awards at festivals world-wide. It was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award (Oscar) in 2011. ALPS won the Osella for Best Screenplay at the 2011 Venice FF and Best Film at the Sydney IFF in 2012. THE LOBSTER is his first English-language film.

Festival Participation/Awards: Belgrade IFF BFI London FF Busan IFF Cannes IFF: Jury Prize FEST Belgrade IFF FF Ghent FilmFest Hamburg Gothenburg IFF Helsinki IFF Karlovy Vary IFF New Horizons IFF New York FF Sarajevo FF

Yorgos Lanthimos

Filmography: 2005 KINETTA 2009 DOGTOOTH 2011 ALPS

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THE MEASURE OF A MAN LA LOI DU MARCHÉ

DIRECTED BY: Stéphane Brizé WRITTEN BY: Stéphane Brizé & Olivier Gorce PRODUCED BY: Christophe Rossignon & Philip Boëffard DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Eric Dumont EDITOR: Anne Klotz

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Valerie Saradjian COSTUME DESIGNER: Anne Dunsford SOUND DESIGNER: Emmanuelle Villard MAIN CAST: Karine de Mirbeck (Thierry’s wife), Matthieu Schaller (Thierry’s son), Vincent Lindon (Thierry)

At 51, after 20 months of unemployment, Thierry starts a new job that soon puts him to face a moral dilemma. To keep his job, can he accept everything? Production: Nord-Ouest Films Christophe Rossignon 41 rue de la Tour d’Auvergne 75009 Paris FRANCE acour@nord-ouest.fr tel: +33 1 53 20 47 32

World Sales: MK2 Juliette Schrameck 55, rue Traversière 75012 Paris FRANCE juliette.schrameck@mk2.com tel: +33 1 44 67 30 00

Press: Vanessa Jerrom 11, rue du Marché Saint Honoré 75001 Paris FRANCE vanessajerrom@wanadoo.fr tel: +33 1 42 97 42 47

SELECTION

France 91 min.

THE MEASURE OF A MAN

Festival Participation/Awards: Cannes IFF: Best Actor

Stéphane Brizé Stéphane Brizé Screenwriter, director and actor Stéphane Brizé was born in 1966 in Rennes, France. He worked as a technician in television, studied acting and began directing for theatre. He made the shorts BLEU DOMMAGE (1993) and L’ŒIL TRAÎNE (1996) and, in 1999, his feature debut LE BLEU DES VILLES. He received the San Sebastian IFF’s CEC Award for Best Film for NOT HERE TO BE LOVED in 2005 and a César for Best Adapted Screenplay for MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON (2010). Filmography: 1993 BLEU DOMMAGE, short 1996 L’ŒIL TRAÎNE, short 1999 LE BLEU DES VILLES 2005 JE NE SUIS PAS LÀ POUR ÊTRE AIMÉ 2006 ENTRE ADULTES 2009 MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON 2012 QUELQUES HEURES DE PRINTEMPS

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THE POSTMAN’S WHITE NIGHTS Белые ночи почтальона Алексея Тряпицына (BELYE NOCHI POCHTALONA ALEKSEYA TRYAPITSYNA) DIRECTED & PRODUCED BY: Andrei Konchalovsky WRITTEN BY: Andrei Konchalovsky & Elena Kiseleva DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Alexander Simonov EDITOR: Sergey Taraskin

SOUND DESIGNER: Polina Volynkina ORIGINAL SCORE: Eduard Artemev MAIN CAST: Alexey Tryapitsyn (Alexey Tryapitsyn), Irina Ermolova (Irina), Timur Bondarenko (Timur, Irina’s son)

The film focuses on the lives of the inhabitants of a remote village. The only way the villagers can reach the mainland is by crossing the lake on a boat. Only a few people live there, and they all know each other well. Although a launch site using state-of-the-art technologies is located close by, the villagers live just the way their ancestors did for centuries. They only produce those things which are necessary for survival. A postman, a man loosely representing the local authorities and social services, is their only link to the outside world. A woman in the village, whom the postman is in love with, decides to run away from this life and move to the city. At the same time, the motor from the postman’s boat goes missing. He can no longer deliver the mail, and his life and those of all the villagers are turned upside down. Following a conflict, he also decides to leave for the city, but he soon returns, although even he can’t explain why. Maybe it’s because he misses his slippers that he foolishly left at home ... The script was based on real people: in the film the actual villagers play themselves. It took over a year to find the right person to take on the main role. Production: Andrei Konchalovsky Studios Olesya Gidrat 21, building 1, Pravdy street 125124 Moscow RUSSIA gidrat@konchalovsky.ru tel: +74 952 55 16 17

World Sales: ANT!PODE SALES & DISTRIBUTION Elena Podolskaya 5-38, Novolesnoy lane 127055 Moscow RUSSIA elena@antipode-sales.biz tel: +79 166 04 58 84

Press: Andrei Konchalovsky Studios Nadezhda Lyzhnikova 21, building 1, Pravdy street 125124 Moscow RUSSIA lyzhnikova@konchalovsky.ru tel: +74952551617

SELECTION

Russia 100 min.

www.konchalovsky.ru/works/films/ Belye-nochi-pochtalyona-tryapitcina

Director’s Statement: In the last years I’ve started thinking that modern cinema is trying to spare the audience from having to engage in contemplation. Over the last few years I’ve been plagued by the uncertainty of whether I truly understand the essence of cinema. This film is my attempt at discovering new possibilities offered by moving images accompanied by sound. An attempt to see the world surrounding us through the eyes of a “newborn”. An attempt to unhurriedly study life. Contemplation is a state in which a person is very aware of his unity with the Universe. Perhaps this film is my attempt at sharpening my hearing and trying to listen to the quiet whisper of the Universe.

THE POSTMAN’S WHITE NIGHTS

Festival Participation/Awards: Belgrade IFF CPH:PIX goEast Wiesbaden Gothenburg IFF Haifa IFF Hong Kong IFF Istanbul IFF Karlovy Vary IFF Melbourne IFF Odessa IFF San Francisco IFF São Paulo IFF Sydney FF Tallinn Black Nights FF Andrei Konchalovsky Tokyo IFF Andrei Konchalovsky has enjoyed equally distinguished Venice IFF: Silver Lion for Best Director directing careers for both stage and screen. His best-known film credits range from international pictures such as UNCLE Golden Eagle Award: Best Script VANYA, based on the Chekhov play, and HOUSE OF FOOLS, about an asylum along the Russian-Chechnya border, to Andrei Konchalovsky such popular English language fare as RUNAWAY TRAIN, which earned three US Academy Award® nominations, MARIA’S LOVERS, DUET FOR ONE and SHY PEOPLE. Born in Moscow, Andrei Konchalovsky studied music, becoming a skilled pianist, before enrolling in the cinema program at VGIK. His debut feature film, THE FIRST TEACHER concerned post-1917 southern Russia. His subsequent films include THE STORY OF ASYA KLYACHINA, which was held back from release until 1988 because of government cen- Filmography: sorship, and received the Russian academy award for best 1965 THE FIRST TEACHER picture, A NEST OF GENTRY, ROMANCE FOR LOVERS, and 1966 THE STORY OF ASYA KLYACHINA SIBIRIADE, a realistic portrayal of the lives of the people of 1969 A NEST OF GENTRY Siberia which earned international acclaim. This led him to 1971 UNCLE VANYA such mainstream Hollywood projects as TANGO & CASH and 1974 ROMANCE FOR LOVERS, HOMER AND EDDIE. 1979 SIBIRIADA 2010 marked the release of Andrei Konchalovsky’s cinematic 1984 MARIA’S LOVERS adaptation of the traditional fairytale THE NUTCRACKER. In 1985 RUNAWAY TRAIN 2012, Konchalovsky wrote, directed and produced BATTLE 1986 DUET FOR ONE FOR UKRAINE, which provided an in depth analysis of how 1987 SHY PEOPLE Ukraine to this day struggles to escape from the close 1989 TANGO & CASH embrace of its former big brother, Russia. This extensive 1989 HOMER AND EDDIE study lasted for almost three years and involved an array of 2002 HOUSE OF FOOLS Ukrainian, Russian and American historians, politicians and 2010 THE NUTCRACKER (3D) journalists. 2014 BATTLE FOR UKRAINE

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THE SNAKE BROTHERS KOBRY A UŽOVKY

DIRECTED BY: Jan Prušinovský WRITTEN BY: Jaroslav Žváček PRODUCED BY: Ondřej Zima & Jan Prušinovský DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Petr Koblovský EDITOR: Lukáš Opatrný

COSTUME DESIGNER: Ivan Stekla SOUND DESIGNER: Matěj Matuška & Michal Čech MAIN CAST: Matěj Hádek (Viper), Kryštof Hádek (Kobra), Jan Hájek, Lucie Polišenská, Lucie Žáčková

The brothers Viper and Cobra are unable to build up a life they can be satisfied with. Viper, unemployed and lonely, does not know how to escape from the shadow of his junkie and troublemaker brother. Until one day he decides to teach him a life lesson he will never forget ... A lesson that uncontrollably turns into a nightmare. Production: Offside MEN Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ring 38 50672 Köln GERMANY festival@medialuna.biz tel: +49 221 5109 1891

World Sales: Media Luna New Films Ida Martins Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ring 38 / 6th floor 50672 Köln GERMANY festival@medialuna.biz tel: +49 221 510 918 91

SELECTION

Czech Republic 111 min.

THE SNAKE BROTHERS

Festival Participation/Awards: Karlovy Vary IFF: Best Actor, Best Poster

Jan Prušinovský Director’s Statement: Sacrifice in order to achieve it. For me, the important thing for the film was to be absolutely authentic. I don’t like dramas that suffocate you with all their fate and seriousness. Even in a dramatic work, you can play with humour. It is usually a bit dark and absurd, or maybe even out of place. It’s not about slapstick or clever one-liners, but a choice of viewpoint. No, it is not a tragicomedy; it really is drama. Jan Prušinovský Jan Prušinovský (*1979) completed his studies at the Film and TV School (FAMU) in the Czech Republic. His first feature FRANKIE IS A WOMANIZER (2008) was in several festivals, such as Rome and Beijing. In 2009 he shot the successful comedy series DISTRICT LEAGUE, which had a cinema release prequel in 2012. Afterwards he made a new TV series, FOURTH STAR. THE SNAKE BROTHERS is his third feature.

Filmography: 2008 FRANKIE IS A WOMANIZER 2012 DISTRICT LEAGUE

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THE SUMMER OF SANGAILE SANGAILES VASARA

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Alanté Kavaïté PRODUCED BY: Živilė Gallego, Antoine Simkine & Marleen Slot DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Dominique Colin EDITOR: Joëlle Hache PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Ramunas Rastauskas

COSTUME DESIGNER: Neringa Kersulytė SOUND DESIGNER: Nicolas Becker ORIGINAL SCORE: JB Dunckel MAIN CAST: Julija Steponaitytė (Sangailė), Aistė Diržiūtė (Austė)

17-year-old Sangaile is fascinated by stunt planes. Afraid of heights, she has never dared to even enter one of the cockpits. At a summer aeronautical show, nearby her parents’ lakeside villa, she meets Auste, a local girl of her age who, unlike Sangaile, lives her life to the full with creativity and dare. As the two girls become lovers, Sangaile allows Auste to discover her most intimate secret, and finds in her teenage love the only person to truly encourage her in flying. Director’s Statement: A few years ago, I conducted several film workshops for teenagers. I thoroughly enjoyed working with them, and above all, I enjoyed filming them. At 17, on the cusp of adulthood, everything seems possible. I was greatly inspired by the open-minded and intense way in which the teenagers embraced things and expressed themselves. I was captivated by how spontaneous, free and ingenuous they were. This experience brought back feelings Production: Fralita Films Zivile Gallego S. Konarskio g. 49-36 03123 Vilnius LITHUANIA info@fralita.com tel: +370 643 30 022

Les Films d’Antoine Antoine Simkine 85, rue Vauvenargues 75018 Paris FRANCE infos@lesfilmsdantoine.com tel: +33 1 42 28 62 53

Viking Film Marleen Slot Lindengracht 17 1015 KB Amsterdam THE NETHERLANDS info@vikingfilm.nl tel: +31 20 625 47

Lithuania, France, Netherlands 89 min.

SELECTION

www.facebook.com/SANGAILE

from my adolescence. When I was 17, like most teenagers, THE SUMMER OF SANGAILE I was in a hurry to make choices while all the while being filled with doubt and fear. I wrote the story for THE SUMMER OF SANGAILE with the guiding idea that sometimes it only takes a chance encounter with someone who helps you to see yourself in a different light to overcome certain difficulties. I wanted this kind and caring individual to be another young girl of the same age, but whose personality was diametrically opposed to Sangaile’s in order to bring out her flaws and contradictions. From the writing stage I had envisioned a film that would Alanté Kavaïté be bright and light, even if the movie addresses adolescent unrest and self-destructive behaviour, for with hindsight, obstacles that seemed insurmountable at the time are now put in their proper perspective. Yet, the joys of adolescence remain intense. Moments of fear and suffering appear to us today as necessary steps to find balance in our lives, emancipate ourselves and grow up. Talking about adolescence, I wanted to make a very musical film that was also a love story with a sensorial, sensual dimension and which had a strong emotional impact. Setting aside the issue of gender while highlighting the symmetry of bodies seemed indispensable in order to focus on the Filmography : narrative of human beings in the making, which is at the 2006 FISSURES heart of this story. I spent my adolescence in Lithuania, a country with a special, practically obsessive relationship with aviation. Every summer, like everyone, I went to see a great number of air shows. It seemed to me that this popular Lithuanian pastime would be the perfect metaphor for Sangaile. Aerobatics, an extreme sport, requires true self-control and that is just the thing that Sangaile seems to lack the most. She has to struggle within to free herself and achieve her dream. Alanté Kavaïté Alanté Kavaïté was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, and began her career as the lead actress in Raimundas Banionis’ JAZZ, a Lithuanian feature film (1992). She then decided to pursue her studies in France, graduating from Avignon’s National Fine Arts School before entering Paris’ Beaux Arts School where she specialised in photography and video. Alanté Kavaïté now devotes herself to write and direct feature films, of which FISSURES (Ecoute le Temps) was her first. It had a theatrical release in France, in the UK in 2007, and was selected for over 20 international festivals. She lives and works in France.

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THE TREASURE COMOARA

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Mihaela Poenaru COSTUME DESIGNER: Monica Florescu MAIN CAST: Cuzin Toma (Costi), Adrian Purcarescu (Adrian), Corneliu Cozmei (Cornel)

stills: Adi Marineci

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Corneliu Porumboiu PRODUCED BY: Marcela Ursu DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Tudor Mircea EDITOR: Roxana Szel

Costi leads a peaceful life. At night he likes to read his 6-year-old son stories, to help him sleep. Their favourite is Robin Hood. Costi sees himself as the hero - righter of wrongs and defender of the oppressed. One evening, his neighbour pays him an unexpected visit and shares a secret: there’s a treasure buried in his grandparents’ garden, he’s sure of it. If Costi will hire a metal detector to help locate it, he’ll give him half of whatever they get. Skeptical at first, in the end Costi can’t resist. He’s on board. The two accomplices have one weekend to locate the loot. Despite every obstacle in their path, Costi refuses to be discouraged. For his wife and son, he’s a real hero - nothing and no one is going to stop him. World Sales: Wild Bunch Olivier Barbier 65 rue de Dunkerque 75009 Paris FRANCE obarbier@wildbunch.eu tel: +33 1 43 13 21 15

SELECTION

Romania, France 88 min.

THE TREASURE

Festival Participation/Awards: Cannes IFF

Corneliu Porumboiu Corneliu Porumboiu Corneliu Porumboiu, born in 1975, became known in 2006 for his first feature, 12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST, which won the Caméra d’Or award at the Cannes FF where it was shown in Directors’ Fortnight. His next film confirmed his talent as a storyteller and director. He is noted for his focus on precise framing and humoristic, intelligent dialogue, as witnessed by POLICE, ADJECTIVE (2009) - Un Certain Regard, Cannes FF 2009 and WHEN EVENING FALLS ON BUCHAREST OR METABOLISM (2013). He is also the inventor of cinematographic devices, as seen in his recent THE SECOND GAME, which garnered attention at the 2014 Berlin IFF.

Filmography : 2002 GONE WITH THE WINE 2003 A TRIP TO THE CITY 2004 LIVIU’S DREAM, short 2006 12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST 2009 POLICE, ADJECTIVE 2013 WHEN EVENING FALLS ON BUCHAREST OR METABOLISM 2014 THE SECOND GAME

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THEY HAVE ESCAPED HE OVAT PAENNEET

DIRECTED BY: Jukka-Pekka Valkeapää WRITTEN BY: Jukka-Pekka Valkeapää & Pilvi Peltola PRODUCED BY: Aleksi Bardy DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Pietari Peltola EDITOR: Mervi Junkkonen

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Markku Pätilä COSTUME DESIGNER: Tiina Wilén SOUND DESIGNER: Micke Nyström ORIGINAL SCORE: Helge Slikker MAIN CAST: Roosa Söderholm (Raisa), Teppo Manner (Joni)

In a twist on boy-meets-girl, the gritty and dreamy drama THEY HAVE ESCAPED is set at a juvenile detention center, where the boy, a stuttering introvert, has come to serve his mandatory civil service, and the girl, an attractive extrovert, is in custody. With boundless energy, she’s the kind of girl that trouble always finds. He’s quiet and reserved, but his attraction to her indomitable spirit makes them realize that they share a fire and a disregard for rules, laws and convention. Their environment can’t restrain them, so they steal a car and go on the run – beginning a journey of drugs, sex and endless escapes. Production: Helsinki-filmi Oy Aleksi Bardy Korkeavuorenkatu 25 a 1 00130 Helsinki FINLAND maarit.mononen@helsinkifilmi.fi tel: +358 40 354 0540

World Sales: Yellow Affair Miira Paasilinna Pälkäneentie 18 a 00510 Helsinki FINLAND miira@yellowaffair.com tel: +358 50 548 1851

Press: The Finnish Film Foundation Jenni Domingo Kanavakatu 12 00160 Helsinki FINLAND jenni.domingo@ses.fi tel: +358 9 6220 300

SELECTION

Finland, Netherlands 62 min.

THEY HAVE ESCAPED

Festival Participation/Awards: Cannes IFF Gothenburg IFF: Sven Nykvist Cinematography Award Jeonju IFF Midnight Sun FF Reykjavik IFF Director’s Statement: Raisa and Joni are outsiders. Outcasts and misfits, they Tallinn Black Nights FF disturb the peace and have no understanding of boundaries. Toronto IFF They have responsibilities but no rights; they’re dreamers Venice IFF World FF Montreal whose futures have been foretold. The style of the film is expressionism, with a narrative style that changes according to the experiences of Raisa and 4 JUSSI Awards: Best Film, Direction, Joni. They are children, and as they embark on the road Sound Design and Editing to adulthood the film undergoes a change in style from a naivistic portrayal of young people to a dream-like, poetic Jukka-Pekka Valkeapää narrative. The film is both an askew coming-of-age story and a fairy tale-like reflection of today’s Finland. Dreams, memories, hallucinations and reality move side by side, collide and finally melt into one another in the narrative. Casting was a challenge. Since the main characters were 17 and 19, the actors would most likely be amateurs. We held an open casting call asking people to submit written applications with photos. We received over 400 applications, and chose 100 young people for auditions. Roosa Söderholm, who plays Raisa, had acted in a youth theatre group. Teppo, who plays Joni, is a plumber; he had acted once before in THE PAINTING SELLERS, a wonderful Cannes Cinefondation prize- winning film by Juho Kuosmanen. It was obvious that Filmography: Roosa and Teppo had innate talent for acting, but it was the 2003 THE FALL, short fearlessness with which they threw themselves into their 2008 THE VISITOR roles that was the key. I wanted to make a film that would be as rough, capricious, surprising and determined as its main characters, who are people who haven’t been ground in the mill of life yet. Instead, they still reach for the light. THEY HAVE ESCAPED is not a realistic film; it’s an optimistic one.

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

THREE WINDOWS AND A HANGING TRI DRITARE DHE NJË VARJE DIRECTED BY: Isa Qosja WRITTEN BY: Zymber Kelmendi PRODUCED BY: Shkumbin Istrefi, Mentor Shala & Nicole Gerhards DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Gökhan Tiryaki EDITOR: Agron Vula

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Zeni Ballazhi COSTUME DESIGNER: Krenare Rugova SOUND DESIGNER: Igor Popovski MAIN CAST: Irena Cahani (Lushe), Luan Jaha (Uka), Donat Qosja (Sokol)

In a traditional village in Kosovo, a year after the war (2000) when people are rebuilding their lives, the female school teacher Lushe is driven by her inner conscience to give an interview to an international journalist, telling her that she and three other women from the village were raped by Serbian forces. When the news is published, the male villagers start Production: CMB Productions Shkumbin Istrefi Radio Kosova Building - Annex 10000 Prishtina KOSOVO isstra@gmail.com tel: +377 44 50 30 40

World Sales: EZ Films Ray Meirovitz 14, rue Mandar 75002 Paris FRANCE ray@ez-films.com tel: +33 6 82 47 34 20

Kosovo, Germany 93 min.

SELECTION

ez-festivals.com/three-windows-anda-hanging/

THREE WINDOWS AND A HANGING

Festival Participation/Awards: Jerusalem IFF: Best Film Motovun FF being suspicious about their wives. As soon as they realize Palm Springs IFF: Special Jury Award that it was Lushe who spoke to the journalist, they start to Sarajevo FF: Cineuropa award stigmatize her and her little boy, asking her to leave the Thessaloniki IFF: Audience award village, and try to find out if their own wives were among those raped. This pressure continues until Ilir (Lushe’s husband), Isa Qosja who was in jail as a prisoner-of-war, returns home. They try to convince Ilir to divorce Lushe. He gets emotionally confused at the beginning, but later, at a village wedding scene, he decides to stay on Lushe’s side, telling everyone that they should not blame, but rather apologise to their wives for not having treated them as victims. A critical view of a society which survived the war, won its independence but still struggles with human equality. An insightful portrait of a Balkan village, of a patriarchal microcosm, and of its mayor who desperately wants to control the village life. Of husbands who feel forced to behave strongly, but act against their own emotional interest. A reflection of rituals which not only show gender inequality, but also the absence of Filmography: freedom of expression within the male community. 1985 PROKA 1987 GUARDS OF THE FOG Director’s Statement: 2005 KUKUMI THREE WINDOWS AND A HANGING has a very tough theme. It was not easy to make a film about it. The characters are psychologically complex, always on the edge of certain emotions. I did not want to make a film that was hard to watch, but I still didn‘t want to avoid the drama and relations between the characters. Isa Qosja Born in 1949 in Vuthaj, Montenegro, Isa Qosja studied Acting at the High School Of Dramatic Arts in Prishtina and Film and TV Directing at the Film Academy in Belgrade.

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

UNDER ELECTRIC CLOUDS ПОД ЭЛЕКТРИЧЕСКИМИ ОБЛАКАМИ (Pod electricheskimi oblakami) WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Aleksey German Jr. PRODUCED BY: Artem Vasilyev, Andrey Savelyev & Rushan Nasibulin DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Sergey Mikhalchuk & Evgeny Privin EDITOR: Sergei Ivanov

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Elena Okopnaya COSTUME DESIGNER: Elena Okopnaya SOUND DESIGNER: Ivan Gusakov ORIGINAL SCORE: Andrey Surotdinov MAIN CAST: Victoria Korotkova (Sasha), Louis Franck (Pyotr), Merab Ninidze (Nikolay), Chulpan Khamatova (Valya)

A bizarre riverbank in fog and snow. Bits of steel and concrete are strewn all around. The skeleton of a skyscraper. Unfinished motorway bridges in a flat landscape. The giant figure of a metal horse. And a statue of Lenin whose outstretched right arm points into nothingness. A cold, ossified no man’s land where the washed-up past meets an imagined future. People drift aimlessly through this surreal world. Old certainties no longer count, friends and relatives have disappeared, ideals have been blown away by the wind. Returning home from abroad, Sasha – whose dead father used to own this building site – now has to deal with his legacy: a Kyrgyz worker who is searching his colleagues; an architect with glowing red skin on his forehead; a tour-guide who once stood next to Yeltsin at the barricades in Moscow. Some of them have unexplained nosebleeds. A young student asks: “Who are we? Who am I? Everything is in chaos.” In seven episodes Alexey German Jr. condenses the spiritual state of his country into a symbolic film of long sequences, a fluidly choreographed dance of people and the camera. Production: Metrafilms Artem Vasilyev 15/8 Rochdelskaya st. 123022 Moscow RUSSIA artem@metrafilms.ru tel: +74 996 49 29 93

World Sales: FILMS BOUTIQUE Valeska Neu Köpenicker Strasse 184 10997 Berlin GERMANY valeska@filmsboutique.com tel: +49 30 695 378 50

Press: Elena Slatina Rochdelskaya 15/8 123022 Moscow RUSSIA lenaslatina@yandex.ru tel: +79 255 02 35 25

SELECTION

Russia, Ukraine, Poland 137 min.

www.metrafilms.ru

Director’s Statement: It was important for us to try to use the entanglement of human stories as an instrument to grasp the general sense of our country. The country that is so incredibly diverse, and filled with contradictions and sometimes incompatible mentalities. Essentially, we have attempted to return to the traditions of the large Russian classical novel, with its complex approach to real life in different combinations thereof. This is why each of the chapters represents a new, different point of view. Just like during a soccer match you have to keep changing the viewing angles in order to see the most important thing, i.e. the game itself. Another aspect that is just as important is that for us, the art of cinematography has always gone hand in hand with depiction and painting traditions, and our film is an attempt to speak in a language that springs from the traditions of impressionism. It is bending the reality, not copying it. It does not mean escaping the truth or creating a conceptual space; on the contrary, bending the reality offers the possibility of speaking more profoundly about the world in its vast variety, undertones, and complex combinations. As for connotations with reality, some characters have their prototypes, but not with regard to exact coincidence of specific fates, but with regard to general human nature and certain similarity of circumstances. In addition, finally, despite the fact that the action of our film takes place in the near future, we did not perceive it as sci-fi. Our task was not to chase time, but to outrun it. Then stop. And wait for time to approach.

UNDER ELECTRIC CLOUDS

Aleksey German Jr. Alexey German Jr. was born in Moscow in 1976. Between 1996 and 2001, Alexey studied at the Russian Film School VGIK. He shot three short films which won awards at international and Russian film festivals. Alexey made his feature debut with THE LAST TRAIN which premiered in Venice in 2003 where it received a special mention from the “Future Lion” jury. Soon thereafter, the Russian Academy of Cinematography “Nika” named the director “Discovery of the Year”. His second film GARPASTUM took part in the official competition of the 2005 Venice IFF. In 2008, his third feature PAPER SOLDIER had its premiere in Venice and was awarded with the Silver Lion for the Best Director and Ozella for the Best Cinematography.

Festival Participation/Awards: Berlin IFF: Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Achievement Jerusalem IFF Moscow IFF Seville European FF

Aleksey German Jr.

Filmography: 2003 THE LAST TRAIN 2005 GARPASTUM 2008 PAPER SOLDIER 2011 FROM TOKYO, short

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EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

VICTORIA WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Sebastian Schipper PRODUCED BY: Jan Dressler DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Sturla Brandth Grøvlen EDITOR: Olivia Neergaard-Holm PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Uli Friedrichs

COSTUME DESIGNER: Stefanie Jauss SOUND DESIGNER: Magnus Pflüger ORIGINAL SCORE: Nils Frahm MAIN CAST: Laia Costa (Victoria), Frederick Lau (Sonne)

On a night out in Berlin, Victoria meets four young local guys – after joining their group, she becomes their driver when they rob a bank. Finally, as dawn breaks, everyone meets their destiny. Production: The MonkeyBoy GmbH Johanna Bergel Zionskirchstraße 69 10119 Berlin GERMANY johanna.bergel@themonkeyboy.de tel: +49 30 233 229 87

World Sales: The Match Factory GmbH Nadja Jumah Balthasarstr. 79-81 50670 Köln GERMANY nadja.jumah@matchfactory.de tel: +49 221 539 709 19

Press: JUST PUBLICITY GmbH Regine Baschny Erhardtstraße 8 80469 München GERMANY r.baschny@just-publicity.com tel: +49 89 202 082 60

SELECTION

101

Germany 138 min.

www.wildbunch-germany.de/movie/ victoria

Director’s Statement: This film is not a movie; it’s not about a bank robbery. It is bank robbery. VICTORIA was shot in one single take. Two hours and fourteen minutes. No cuts. No cheap tricks. No expensive ones either. Just one shot. On 27 April 2014, we started the camera a little after 4:30am in a club we’d built ourselves (in order to keep locations close to each other), and after 2 hours and 14 minutes – after we’d run, walked, strolled and climbed through 22 locations, had more than 150 extras handled by 6 assistant directors and seven actors followed in succession by 3 sound crews - we were done at 06:54 am. The sun had slowly risen while we filmed, and Laia Costa finally walked away from our cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, who looked like he had just run a marathon. Well, he had. We all had. Why did we do it? It’s crazy. A little stupid, too. Well, why do people rob banks? For the money! Of course! But maybe it’s not the only reason. The first thought I ever had about this project was that I realised that in my life I would never rob a bank. And I didn’t like the thought. I believe it would be an experience like no other. Not hurting, wounding or even kidnapping people, but to enter a zone – dark and full of fear – to take a gun and demand everything, right away. To receive – not because you deserve it; not because you behaved well or worked hard – but to fast forward and demand it all: Right now! Right here! Hemingway wanted to shoot an elephant. He knew it was the ultimate sin, but he did it anyway. Or maybe that’s why he did it. So, there it was: the idea to rob a bank; and the knowledge that we weren’t robbers but filmmakers. But what if we were to shoot the entire film in one single take? The hour before the robbery – and the hour afterwards? That’s how we meet the characters, hear their stories, feel their hopes, their despair, their urge to do one defining thing, one thing that will change it all. And also: why is it that there are so many films about bank robberies, and yet so very few that really make you feel the experience? And isn’t that, at heart, what it’s really about? Not the robbery. Not a movie about a robbery. Not even a movie about a robbery without a cut. But... the trip. And the more I think about it, the more I believe that’s why we even watch films to begin with: deep down it’s not about stories, action, jokes and characters, but about going somewhere and doing the undoable, demanding it all - Right now! Right here!

VICTORIA

Festival Participation/Awards: AFI Fest: LA IFF BAFICI Buenos Aires Int’l Independent FF Berlin IFF: Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution BFI London FF Helsinki IFF Hong Kong IFF Jerusalem IFF Odessa IFF Oslo FF Sydney FF Toronto IFF Vilnius IFF: Best Film 7 LOLA Awards: Best Film, Director, Actress, Actor, Cinematography, Music.

portrait: Annika Nagel

Sebastian Schipper

Filmography: 1998 ABSOLUTE GIGANTEN 2004 EIN FREUND VON MIR 2008 MITTE ENDE AUGUST

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EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

VIRGIN MOUNTAIN FÚSI

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Dagur Kári PRODUCED BY: Baltasar Kormákur & Agnes Johansen DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Rasmus Videbæk EDITOR: Andri Steinn Guðjónsson, Olivier Bugge Coutté & Dagur Kári PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Hálfdan Pedersen

COSTUME DESIGNER: Helga Rós V. Hannam SOUND DESIGNER: Ingvar Lundberg & Kjartan Kjartansson ORIGINAL SCORE: Dagur Kári & Orri Jónsson MAIN CAST: Gunnar Jónsson (Fúsi), Ilmur Kristjánsdóttir (Sjöfn)

Fúsi, a timid man in his mid-forties, is yet to find the courage to fully enter and embrace the adult world; to lift his wings and leave his nest. He sleepwalks through everyday life, where routine is key. When a vibrant woman about his own age and an eight-year-old girl unexpectedly enter his life, he is soon forced to step up; take a leap and find out where his wings will take him. Production: Sögn & RVK Studios Agnes Johansen Seljavegi 2 101 Reykjavík ICELAND agnes@blueeyes.is tel: +354 515 05 50

World Sales: BAC Films Mathieu Robinet 9, rue Pierre Dupoint 75010 Paris France m.robinet@bacfilms.fr tel: +33 1 80 49 10 00

Press: Icelandic Film Centre Christof Wehmeier Hverfisgötu 54 101 Reykjavík ICELAND christof@icelandicfilmcentre.is tel: +354 562 35 80

SELECTION

103

Iceland, Denmark 94 min.

VIRGIN MOUNTAIN

Director’s Statement: VIRGIN MOUNTAIN is a character study and a close-up of a middle aged man, Fúsi, who is still stuck in his childhood. Like a bird that refuses to leave the nest, he still lives with his mother and has created a bubble-like world around him where he feels safe and secure. Fúsi has no intentions of breaking the bubble; status quo is what he wants, but what he really needs is perhaps to take one small step forward in the board game of life. The film was written with a specific actor in mind. Gunnar Jónsson is a natural talent who has done a lot of comedy over the past decade, but I have always dreamt of seeing him dealing with a more serious role. Dagur Kári Director/Writer/Musician Dagur Kári was born in 1973 in France but was raised in Iceland. He studied filmmaking in Denmark from 1995 to 1999 and made his feature debut in 2003 with NOI ALBINOI. Dagur Kári also works as a musician with the band Slowblow. Since autumn 2013 he has been employed at The National Film School of Denmark as Head of the Director’s Program.

Festival Participation/Awards: Athens IFF Berlin IFF BFI London FF Bratislava IFF CPH:PIX: Politiken’s Audience Award Gothenburg IFF Helsinki IFF Istanbul IFF Jerusalem IFF Karlovy Vary IFF Kolkata FF Mar del Plata IFF Moscow IFF Mumbai FF Sarajevo FF Seattle IFF Taipei FF Thessaloniki IFF Transilvania IFF Tribeca FF: Best Narrative Feature, Best Screenplay, Best Actor in a Leading Role

Dagur Kári

Filmography: 1998 OLD SPICE, short 1999 LOST WEEKEND, short 2003 NOI ALBINOI 2005 DARK HORSE 2009 THE GOOD HEART

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EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

WEDNESDAY 04:45 TETARTI 04:45

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Alexis Alexiou PRODUCED BY: Thanassis Karathanos, Kostas Lambropoulos, Talia Kleinhendler & Osnat Handelsman-Keren DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Christos Karamanis EDITOR: Lambis Charalambidis PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Spyros Laskaris COSTUME DESIGNER: Alkisti Mamali

SOUND DESIGNER: Avi Mizrahi ORIGINAL SCORE: Felizol Felizol MAIN CAST: Stelios Mainas (Stelios), Dimitris Tzoumakis (Vassos), Adam Bousdokos (driver), Giorgos Simeonidis (Omer), Mimi Branescu (the Romanian), Maria Nafpliotou (Sophia)

Stelios is the owner of a jazz club in Athens. A few years ago, through the help of his former associate Vassos, Stelios received a business loan from the Romanian in order to renovate his club. In 2010, the recession finds Stelios on the brink of bankruptcy unable to repay the loan. The Romanian meets with Stelios and gives him one day to come up with a solution. Trying to buy some good will for his old friend, Vassos asks Stelios to meet up with Omar, an Albanian strip-bar owner who also owes money to the Romanian. Omar and Stelios’ lives will soon cross in the most unexpected of ways. In a vortex of adultery, drug abuse, violence, guilt and self-deception, Stelios has only a few hours left to save his club, salvage his crumbling marriage, battle the mafia loan-sharks, baptize his employee’s kid and show up at school to receive his son’s report card as a responsible parent. Production: Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion Thanassis Karathanos Schwedter Str. 13 10119 Berlin GERMANY office@twentytwentyvision.eu tel: +49 30 612 817 50

World Sales: Loco Film Laurent Danielou 16, rue Claude Tillier 75012 Paris FRANCE laurent.danielou@loco-films.com tel: +33 6 64 20 91 60

SELECTION

105

Greece, Israel, Germany 116 min. Director’s Statement: WEDNESDAY 04:45 utilizes the film language of the crime drama / urban thriller genre in order to tell the story of a disillusioned middle-aged Greek businessman whose ambition and high expectations to succeed and make a difference are met with frustration and self-destruction; and at the same time, with a rather unexpected and violent catharsis. Infused by a somewhat bitter, guilefully satirical and ironic sense of humour, WEDNESDAY 04:45 explores the darker side of the human psyche, utilizing the ongoing Greek social upheaval both as a backdrop and as a metaphor for the protagonist’s inner turmoil. Against this small scale background of the Athenian underworld as presented by the screenplay, wider aspects and issues of contemporary Greek society are subtly addressed underpinning the constant shift of social dynamics brought about by the hyper-consumption, the influx of immigrants, the collapse of the economy and the ongoing failure of a lacklustre political administration to deal with issues. Consequently, WEDNESDAY 04:45 is not just the story of one man’s botched dreams and lost chances. The film indirectly addresses the failed dreams, the lost causes and misplaced hopes of an entire generation of Greeks, who, deluded by the rapid economic growth at the beginning of the 80s (when Greece became a member of the European Union and disproportionate funds started to flow in), failed to foresee how things would evolve and possibly change for the worse. And it is in this respect that the protagonist’s frenzied, self-destructive journey can be understood as an ironic statement on the self-deluded course of a whole country’s middle class society towards desolation and defeat. Yet, every time a new dawn fades in, a final chance to set things right, a last gleam of hope, will always lurk in the darkest of corners. Alexis Alexiou Born in 1976, Alexis Alexiou has a degree in Physics from the University of Athens and has studied cinema in Greece. He wrote and directed 4 short films prior to his debut feature TALE 52 in 2008 which was presented at various festivals including the Tiger Awards Competition of Rotterdam IFF, Toronto and Sitges, where he won the best screenplay award. WEDNESDAY 04:45 is his second feature.

WEDNESDAY 04:45

Festival Participation/Awards: Gothenburg IFF Haifa IFF Jeonju IFF Karlovy Vary IFF BFI London FF Tribeca FF

Alexis Alexiou

Filmography: Filmography: 2008 TALE 52

106

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

YOUTH

YOUTH – LA GIOVINEZZA COSTUME DESIGNER: Carlo Poggioli SOUND DESIGNER: Silvia Moraes ORIGINAL SCORE: David Lang MAIN CAST: Michael Caine (Fred Ballinger), Harvey Keitel (Mick Boyle), Rachel Weisz (Lena), Paul Dano (Jimmy Tree), Jane Fonda (Brenda Morel)

pictures: Gianni Fiorito

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Paolo Sorrentino PRODUCED BY: Nicola Giuliano, Francesca Cima & Carlotta Calori DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Luca Bigazzi EDITOR: Cristiano Travaglioli PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Ludovica Ferrario

Springtime. Fred and Mick, two old friends now approaching eighty, are on vacation together in an elegant hotel at the foot of the Alps. Fred, a composer and conductor, is now retired. Mick, a film director, is still working. The two friends know that their time is quickly running out, and they decide to face their future together. They look with curiosity and tenderness on their children’s confused lives, Mick’s enthusiastic young writers, and the other hotel guests, all of whom, it seems, have all the time that they lack. And while Mick scrambles to finish the screenplay for what he imagines will be his last important film, Fred, who gave up his musical career long ago, has no intention of returning to it. But someone wants at all costs to hear his compositions and to see him conduct again. Production: Indigo Film Nicola Giuliano Via Torino 135 00184 Roma ITALY info@indigofilm.it tel: +39 06 77 25 02 55

World Sales: Pathé International 2, rue Lamennais 75008 Paris FRANCE Themba.Bhebhe@pathe.com tel: +33 1 71 72 33 05

SELECTION

107

Italy, France, UK, Switzerland 118 min.

YOUTH

Paolo Sorrentino Paolo Sorrentino, director and screenwriter, was born in Naples in 1970. In 2001 he made his first feature film, ONE MAN UP (L’uomo in più), with Toni Servillo and Andrea Renzi. The film, selected for the Venice FF, was nominated for three David di Donatellos, and won a Silver Ribbon for best new director as well as two Golden Goblets. In 2004 he completed his second film THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE (Le conseguenze dell’amore). Shown in competition at the Cannes FF, the film won numerous awards including five David di Donatellos, four Silver Ribbons and five Ciak d’Oro. In 2006 he made his third film THE FAMILY FRIEND (L’amico di famiglia) which, after competing at the Cannes FF, was shown in numerous international festivals. In 2008 with IL DIVO, starring Toni Servillo, Sorrentino competed at the Cannes FF for the third time and won the Jury Prize. The film went on to win seven David di Donatellos, five Ciak d’Oro, five Silver Ribbons and an Oscar nomination for best make-up. In 2010 Feltrinelli published his first novel “Hanno tutti ragione”, which was well received by readers and critics alike, and made the short list for the Strega Prize. In 2011 THIS MUST BE THE PLACE was Sorrentino’s first film in English. Starring Sean Penn and Frances McDormand, the film was in competition at the 64th Cannes FF. It won numerous awards including six David di Donatellos, three Silver Ribbons and four Ciak d’Oro. In 2012 Feltrinelli published his second book “Tony Pagoda e i suoi amici”. In 2013 THE GREAT BEAUTY (La grande bellezza), starring Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone and Sabrina Ferilli, saw Sorrentino compete for the fifth time at the Cannes IFF. The film went on to win many awards including an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, and a BAFTA, as well as five important EFA awards including European Film, Director and Actor.

Festival Participation/Awards: BFI London FF Cannes FF

Paolo Sorrentino

Filmography: 2001 ONE MAN UP 2004 THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE 2006 THE FAMILY FRIEND 2008 IL DIVO 2011 THIS MUST BE THE PLACE 2013 THE GREAT BEAUTY

108

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2015

English Titles 13 MINUTES ................................................................................................................. 45 YEARS ...................................................................................................................... A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE ..................................... AFERIM! ........................................................................................................................ AFTERTHOUGHT .......................................................................................................... ARABIAN NIGHTS - VOLUME I-3 .................................................................................. BABAI ............................................................................................................................ BLACK SOULS .............................................................................................................. BODY ............................................................................................................................. CORN ISLAND .............................................................................................................. CORRECTIONS CLASS .................................................................................................. DORA OR THE SEXUAL NEUROSES OF OUR PARENTS .............................................. EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO ..................................................................................... EVERY THING WILL BE FINE ....................................................................................... EX MACHINA ................................................................................................................. GOODNIGHT MOMMY ................................................................................................... IN THE SHADOW OF WOMEN ....................................................................................... KOZA ............................................................................................................................. LABYRINTH OF LIES ..................................................................................................... LOUDER THAN BOMBS ................................................................................................ MAGICAL GIRL .............................................................................................................. MARSHLAND ................................................................................................................ MEN & CHICKEN .......................................................................................................... MISS JULIE ................................................................................................................... MUSTANG ..................................................................................................................... MY GOLDEN DAYS ........................................................................................................ MY MOTHER .................................................................................................................. NO ONE`S CHILD ......................................................................................................... PADDINGTON ............................................................................................................... PEACE TO US IN OUR DREAMS ................................................................................... RAMS ............................................................................................................................ SCHNEIDER VS. BAX .................................................................................................... TALE OF TALES ............................................................................................................. THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT ................................................................................... THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY ........................................................................................... THE FAREWELL PARTY ................................................................................................ THE HERE AFTER ......................................................................................................... THE HIGH SUN ............................................................................................................. THE LESSON ................................................................................................................. THE LOBSTER ............................................................................................................... THE MEASURE OF A MAN ............................................................................................ THE POSTMAN’S WHITE NIGHTS ................................................................................ THE SNAKE BROTHERS ............................................................................................... THE SUMMER OF SANGAILE ....................................................................................... THE TREASURE ............................................................................................................ THEY HAVE ESCAPED .................................................................................................. THREE WINDOWS AND A HANGING ............................................................................ UNDER ELECTRIC CLOUDS ......................................................................................... VICTORIA ....................................................................................................................... VIRGIN MOUNTAIN ....................................................................................................... WEDNESDAY 04:45 ....................................................................................................... YOUTH ...........................................................................................................................

4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 100 102 104 106

109

INDEX OF FILMS

Original Titles 45 YEARS ...................................................................................................................... AFERIM! ........................................................................................................................ ANIME NERE ................................................................................................................ AS MIL E UMA NOITES - VOLUME I-3 .......................................................................... BABAI ........................................................................................................................... Белые ночи почтальона Алексея Тряпицына (BELYE NOCHI POCHTALONA...) ...... CIAŁO ............................................................................................................................ COMOARA ..................................................................................................................... DORA ODER DIE SEXUELLEN NEUROSEN UNSERER ELTERN .................................. EFTERSKALV ................................................................................................................. EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO ..................................................................................... ELSER ........................................................................................................................... EN DUVA SATT PÅ EN GREN OCH FUNDERADE PÅ TILLVARON ................................ EVERY THING WILL BE FINE ....................................................................................... EX MACHINA ................................................................................................................. FRØKEN JULIE ............................................................................................................. FÚSI .............................................................................................................................. HAYORED LEMA’ALA .................................................................................................... HE OVAT PAENNEET .................................................................................................... HRÚTAR ........................................................................................................................ ICH SEH ICH SHE ......................................................................................................... IM LABYRINTH DES SCHWEIGENS .............................................................................. INTRUZ ......................................................................................................................... Класс коррекции (KLASS KORREKZII) ........................................................................ KOBRY A UŽOVKY ......................................................................................................... KOZA ............................................................................................................................. LA ISLA MÍNIMA ........................................................................................................... LA LOI DU MARCHÉ ..................................................................................................... LE TOUT NOUVEAU TESTAMENT ................................................................................. L’OMBRE DES FEMMES ............................................................................................... LOUDER THAN BOMBS ................................................................................................ MÆND & HØNS ............................................................................................................ MAGICAL GIRL .............................................................................................................. MIA MADRE .................................................................................................................. ‫הבוט התימ‬‎ (MITA TOVA) ................................................................................................ MUSTANG ..................................................................................................................... NIČIJE DETE ................................................................................................................. PADDINGTON ............................................................................................................... PEACE TO US IN OUR DREAMS ................................................................................... Под ЭЛЕКТРИЧЕСКИМИ ОБЛАКАМИ (POD ELECTRICHESKIMI OBLAKAMI) ........... SANGAILES VASARA .................................................................................................... SCHNEIDER VS. BAX .................................................................................................... სიმინდის კუნძული (SIMINDIS KUNDZULI) ............................................................... TALE OF TALES ............................................................................................................. TETARTI 04:45 .............................................................................................................. THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY ........................................................................................... THE LOBSTER .............................................................................................................. TRI DRITARE DHE NJË VARJE ..................................................................................... TROIS SOUVENIRS DE MA JEUNESSE ........................................................................ UROK ............................................................................................................................ VICTORIA ...................................................................................................................... YOUTH – LA GIOVINEZZA ............................................................................................. ZVIZDAN .......................................................................................................................

6 10 18 14 16 86 20 92 26 76 28 4 8 30 32 50 102 12 94 64 34 40 76 24 88 38 46 84 70 36 42 48 44 56 74 52 58 60 62 98 90 66 22 68 104 72 82 96 54 80 100 106 78

Founded in 1988, the European Film Academy (EFA) now unites more than 3,000 European film professionals with the common aim of promoting European film culture. Throughout the year, the EFA initiates and participates in a series of activities dealing with film politics as well as economic, artistic, and training aspects. The programme includes conferences, seminars and workshops, and a common goal is to build a bridge between creativity and the industry. These activities culminate in the annual presentation of the European Film Awards.