Press Release SIC 2014 (eng)

29. Venice International Film Critics’ Week

Venice 27 August – 6 September 2014

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National Union of Italian Film Critics (SNCCI) President: Franco Montini la Biennale di Venezia President: Paolo Baratta 71. Venice International Film Festival Director: Alberto Barbera 29. Venice International Film Critics’ Week 27 August – 6 September 2014 Selection Committee Francesco Di Pace (General Delegate) Nicola Falcinella Giuseppe Gariazzo Anna Maria Pasetti Luca Pellegrini Programming Office Eddie Bertozzi Anette Dujisin-Muharay Palazzo del Cinema – Lungomare Marconi 30126 Lido di Venezia (VE) - Italy T: +39 041 2726679 sicvenezia@gmail.com - www.sicvenezia.it Press Office Gabriele Barcaro gabriele.barcaro@gmail.com M: +39 340 5538425 SNCCI Administration Office Patrizia Piciacchia Via delle Alpi, 30 - 00198 Roma T: +39 06 4824713 sncci.info@gmail.com – www.sncci.it

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The Venice International Film Critics’ Week is an independent section of the Venice International Film Festival, exclusively dedicated to first-time directors’ full-length films.

Founded by Lino Micciché in 1984, the Venice International Film Critics’ Week has been from the beginning committed to finding, promoting and consolidating new voices and emerging talents of world cinema. Over its 29 editions, the Venice International Film Critics’ Week discovered and launched young filmmakers that soon became renowned authors in the international panorama, such as: Kevin Reynolds (Fandango, 1985), Olivier Assayas (Désordre, 1986), Alex Van Warmerdam (Abel, 1986), Carlo Mazzacurati (Notte italiana, 1987), Paolo Benvenuti (Il bacio di Giuda, 1988), John Hillcoat (Ghosts…of the Civil Dead, 1988), Mike Leigh (High Hope, 1988), Bruce Weber (Let’s Get Lost, 1988), Pedro Costa (O sangue, 1989), Sergio Rubini (La stazione, 1990), Cédric Kahn (Bar des rails, 1991), Bryan Singer (Public Access, 1993), Rachid Benhadj (Touchia, 1993), Harmony Korine (Gummo, 1997), Roberta Torre (Tano da morire, 1997), Peter Mullan (Orphans, 1998), Pablo Trapero (Mundo grua, 1999), Vincenzo Marra (Tornando a casa, 2001), Celina Murga (Ana y los otros, 2003), Salvatore Mereu (Ballo a tre passi, 2003), Royston Tan (15, 2003), Rian Johnson (Brick, 2005), Dito Montiel (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, 2006), Andrea Molaioli (La ragazza del lago, 2007), Syllas Tzoumèrkas (Homeland, 2010), Alix Delaporte (Angèle et Tony, 2010).

The latest winners of the Venice International Film Critics’ Week were Nader Takmil Homayoun (Tehroun, 2009), Pernilla August (Beyond, 2010), Guido Lombardi (Là-bas, 2011), Gabriela Pichler (Eat Sleep Die, 2012) and Matteo Oleotto (Zoran, il mio nipote scemo, 2013).

Furthermore, among the authors discovered by Venice International Film Critics’ Week and winners of the Lion of the Future - “Luigi De Laurentiis” Award for a Debut Film we can find Giovanni Davide Maderna (Questo è il giardino, 1999), Abdel Kechiche (La faute à Voltaire, 2000), Dylan Kidd (Roger Dodger, 2002), Ismaël Ferroukhi (Le grand voyage, 2004), Gianni Di Gregorio (Pranzo di ferragosto, 2008), Guido Lombardi (Là-bas, 2011), Ali Aydın (Muffa, 2012) and Noaz Deshe (White Shadow, 2013).

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29. Venice International Film Critics’ Week 27 August – 6 September 2014 The seven films in competition are: Binguan (The Coffin in the Mountain)

by Xin Yukun China, 2014 – World Premiere Dancing with Maria

by Ivan Gergolet Italy-Argentina-Slovenia, 2014 – World Premiere Đập cánh giữa không trung (Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere)

by Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp Vietnam-France-Norway-Germany, 2014 – World Premiere Ničije dete (No One’s Child)

by Vuk Ršumović Serbia, 2014 – World Premiere Terre Battue (40-Love)

by Stéphane Demoustier France-Belgium, 2014 – World Premiere Villa Touma

by Suha Arraf Palestine, 2014 – World Premiere Zerrumpelt Herz (The Council of Birds)

by Timm Kröger Germany, 2014 – World Premiere

Opening Film – Special Event Out of Competition Melbourne

by Nima Javidi Iran, 2014 – International Premiere Closing Film – Special Event Out of Competition Arance e martello (The Market)

by Diego Bianchi Italy, 2014 - World Premiere

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The seven films in competition at the 29. Venice International Film Critics’ Week are eligible for two awards: •

RaroVideo Audience Award – 29. Venice International Film Critics’ Week The seven films in competition are eligible for the “RaroVideo Audience Award” consisting of 5,000 Euro.

•

Lion of the Future – “Luigi De Laurentiis” Award for a Debut Film The seven films in competition as well as all the debut features presented in the competitive sections of the festival are eligible for the “Lion of the Future – ‘Luigi De Laurentiis’ Award for a Debut Film”. The prize, consisting of 100,000 USD, is offered

by Aurelio and Luigi De Laurentiis’ Filmauro and will be equally divided between the director and the producer.

Once more, FEDEORA – Federation of Film Critics of Europe and the Mediterranean – will award two collateral prizes to films presented at the Venice International Film Critics’ Week: one for Best Film, and one for Best Script, Best Cinematography, or Best Actor/Actress.

The Venice International Film Critics’ Week’s is once again pleased to be supported by BNL – BNP Paribas Group, a bank traditionally committed to support Italian cinema and international film festivals.

Thanks to the key support of Region of Veneto, the films of the Venice International Film Critic’s Week will be screened after the conclusion of the Venice International Film Festival in several cities of Veneto, and thanks to the funds of the Autonomous Province of Trento and the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, some of the titles will also reach those two cities.

The Venice International Film Critics’ Week further benefits from the invaluable support of important partners such as Tiziana Rocca Comunicazione and Istituto Luce-Cinecittà.

Lastly, The Venice International Film Critics’ Week is delighted to collaborate with media partners FRED, a multi-language web radio; Festival Scope, an online platform for film industry professionals; and Quinlan, a film critic magazine.

All press materials are available for download at the following link: www.sicvenezia.it/stampa

The 29. edition of the Venice International Film Critic’s Week is dedicated to the dear memory of Claudio G. Fava and Sandro Zambetti.

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29. Venice International Film Critics’ Week 27 August – 6 September 2014 la Biennale di Venezia and the National Union of Italian Film Critics present the line-up of the 29. Venice International Film Critics’ Week Our two Italian films selected at the 29. Venice International Film Critics’ Week will apparently seem like two estranged bodies. For the first time in competition, an Italian documentary: but it’s not about trends, we were just waiting for the right film and this is truly a surprising debut.

Dancing with Maria, by Gorizian born Ivan Gergolet tells the story of an extraordinary woman, Maria Fux. Maria is an energetic and passionate dancer of over ninety years old that in Buenos Aires became some sort of an institution with her dance therapy school mainly dedicated, but not only, to people with mental and physical disabilities. The film, produced by Igor Prinčič – who also produced last year’s winner of the Venice International Film Critic’s Week, Zoran, My Nephew the Idiot –, is the emotional incursion of a filmmaker in an engaging and poetic world, where word, movement, music and bodies draw the very essence of cinema in its most profound meaning.

Also the Italian comedy that closes, out of competition, our program is an estranged body to this selection, which is mainly characterized by dramas that hint to genres such as thriller and melodrama. Arance e martello (The Market) is the debut film of journalist and blogger, now TV presenter, Diego “Zoro” Bianchi. It is a Do the right thing set in a local market in the San Giovanni neighborhood of Rome. The city council decides to close down the stalls and the owners mobilize by looking for support in the local headquarters of the Democratic Party. A true story in the form of a “costume drama” but set in 2011. The film is an entertaining pastiche that mixes the typical language of Bianchi, a video camera catching the events and a more strictly cinematic point of view, with pleasant reminiscences of the popular film genre with “Roman” flavor and at the same time managing to tell one side of contemporary Italy.

This year’s opening film, out of the competition of seven world premieres, is an Iranian international premiere: Melbourne, directed by Nima Javidi and interpreted, among others, by the main character of A Separation, Peyman Maadi. A couple is leaving for Melbourne, but an unexpected event in the form of a newly born will complicate things. We are in the realm of Asghar Farhadi’s cinema, in the highest of its meanings: a dramatic film, tense as a thriller, in which lie and sense of guilt risk to mark the fate of two people about to radically change their lives.

There are a lot of youngsters and, curiously, pregnant women in the other debut films that are competing together with the Italian documentary for the RaroVideo Audience Award. In Vuk Ršumović’s Serbian film Ničije dete (No one’s Child), we have a boy who is some sort of a little wild animal found by chance in the Bosnian woods. We are in pre-war Yugoslavia and this boy is taken to an orphanage in Belgrade for an educational reinsertion. The outbreak of the war and the division of the territory will dramatically mark his regression towards solitude and, perhaps, death.

A boy gifted in tennis is, together with the parents interpreted by the great actors Oliver Gourmet and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, the main character of the French-Belgian film by Stéphane Demoustier, Terre battue (40-Love). The father loses his job and hustles to face the economic crisis, but also the conjugal one. The son, who would like to succeed in tennis, is afraid that he could only do that through deceit. The Dardennes’ produce a film that is tense and dramatic, speaking Main Sponsor

about the disruptions caused by the crisis but also about the dynamics of emulation and escape from models of parenthood.

The young protagonist of Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp’s Vietnamese film Đập Cánh Giữa Không Trung (Flapping in The Middle of Nowhere) is pregnant but she would like to have an abortion. Her boyfriend is a foolish guy who bets on roosters and she finds herself only with the support of her transgender best friend. Forced to prostitution, she comes across a rich man obsessed by fetuses.

This is the shock film of our selection, but it is also the certain revelation of a directing talent that for this project already received prices and funds of various international institutions.

Pregnant is also the young girl who ends up being welcomed by her aunts in a house of Ramallah.

Villa Touma is the first feature film of Suha Arraf, Palestinian screenwriter of The Syrian Bride and Lemon Tree, and author of the beautiful documentary Women of Hamas. Elegant and seductive, the film tells the story of three sisters that live secluded in a villa as if the world around them wouldn’t have changed, indifferent to the winds of war that still in these hours trouble those territories. Certainly, a mature expressive debut of great charm.

The intricate Chinese noir Binguan (The Coffin in The Mountain) directed by the young filmmaker Xin Yukun also revolves around a possible pregnancy. Narratively it is constructed as an inexorable device that faces the story from several points of view. The film speaks of themes such as death, betrayal and lies, all set during a ritual funeral in a small Chinese village. Except that the body to be buried in the “coffin in the mountain” is never of the person that from time to time we are led to believe.

We conclude with the German film by Timm Kröger, Zerrumpelt Herz (The Council of Birds – the original title is quite untranslatable and it would be something like “Shattered Heart”). It’s the graduation film of a 29-years-old. This information could however shock you after watching the film, which looks like an expressively mature and rigorous work of an uncommon directing talent.

It says a lot about how cinema is taught in some schools outside of our borders. The film is set in the 1920s and tells the story of a music professor, his wife and a friend who go to a house immersed in the forest, invited by their musician friend who wants to show them his new symphony. This trip will turn the life of the participants upside down, be that in a conjugal point of view as well as in terms of loss of identity, all set in the nature, which was never before filmed in such a starring way. A certain discovery in our program.

Francesco Di Pace

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BINGUAN (The Coffin in the Mountain) China, 2014, col., 119’

Director: Xin Yukun. Screenplay: Xin Yukun, Feng Yuanliang. Cinematography: He Shan.

Editing: Xin Yukun. Music: Zhang Lei. Sound: Zhang Lei. Art Direction: Guo Kai. Costumes: Cao Ruichun. Cast: Huo Weimin (Xiao Weiguo), Wang Xiaotian (Xiao Zongyao), Luo Yun (Huang Huan), Yang Yuzen (Xiao Zongyao’s mother), Sun Li (Li Qin), Cao Xian (Chen Zili), Jia Zhigang (Da Zhuang), Shao Shengjie (Wang Baoshan), Zhu Ziqing (Bai Hu), Wang Zichen (Bai Guoqing).

Production: Ren Jiangzhou (Sea Level Production). Co-production: Geng Hu, Quan Yingchun, Zhu Xun, Chen Junmei, Shen Qiyong.

A young man tries to get away from his family’s overwhelming power, but when he accidentally kills a local thug, his fate will be intricately linked to his father’s. A woman, who for years has been victim of domestic violence, finds comfort in the arms of her ex-lover. The news of the death of her husband arrives as she was planning his murder. An honest village chief plans to retire but an exceptional event related to his son will pull him into the abyss.

Agatha Christie would be proud: a range of ordinary characters in a southern Chinese village, entangled in a series of crimes, lies and revenges. Many hidden truths surrounding a black coffin that opens and closes, comes and goes, day and night. Around it, several women – who can be very mean – and several men – who can be very violent. They cry because their pain is false, because their love is not true. Because that coffin is their life assurance, it´s a murky hope, a weapon for blackmail. Xin Yukun wrote the script hand in hand with Feng Yuanliang, directed a very noir film and carried out the editing. It’s a very delicate mechanism of interlinks, actions and desires born from the volubility of the heart, from the greed of the soul, from the chances of life. Born from time, clear and dark, that comes and goes.

Xin Yukun is 30 years old and graduated in Photography from the Beijing Film Academy. His short film Seven Nights was selected in a many international film festivals. He worked for three years on the script of Binguan, his debut film.

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DANCING WITH MARIA Italy-Argentina-Slovenia, 2014, col., 72’

Director: Ivan Gergolet. Cinematography: Ivan Gergolet, David Rubio. Editing: Natalie Cristiani.

Music: Luca Ciut. Sound: Havir Gergolet. Cast: Maria Fux, Martina Serban, Maria José Vexenat, Marcos Ruiz, Macarena Battista. Production: Igor Prinčič (Transmedia). Co-production: David Rubio (Imaginada Films), Miha Černec (Staragara). International Distribution: Slingshot Films.

Maria Fux is an elderly Argentinian dancer. In her studio in the centre of Buenos Aires, she welcomes dancers from all walks of life, including women and men with physical and mental impairments, and arranges integrated dance groups. After having experimented and taught her method throughout her entire life - based on the perception of inner rhythms and the symbiosis with music - Maria Fux is now dealing with one last student, possibly the most difficult one: herself. We all have limits that we can acknowledge and finally overcome. At the age of 90, Maria fights her ultimate battle against the limits of her own body.

Everyone can dance with Maria Fux: she is over 90-year-old, with many challenges and ambitions behind her, but she hasn’t lost the verve and graciousness that made her one of the greatest dancers.

She is an extraordinary woman that managed to change the lives of those who crossed her path and succeeded in making dance even those with a handicap or those who don’t seem to have it in them.

If Maria knows how to grasp the music and rhythm that lie in silence, Ivan Gergolet’s camera knows how to capture the strength and magic of this never subdued artist, capable of teaching and involving anyone. A creative documentary directed with a very cinematographic eye that guides you with discretion and patience inside the dancer’s world. An extremely empathic film that goes well beyond the usual portray or biography.

Ivan Gergolet was born in Monfalcone in 1977. He graduated in Performing Arts from the University of Bologna and started working in the film industry in 1995. He directed documentary shorts (Akropolis, 2005; Making Archeo Films, 2011), short fiction films (Quando il fuoco si spegne, 2005; Polvere, 2009; La collezione di Medea, 2009; Ouverture, 2010), institutional and corporate videos. His works focus particularly on the relation between memory and repression. He has been working as assistant director, production assistant and production manager for several national and international projects. Dancing with Maria is his first full-length documentary.

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ĐẬP CÁNH GIỮA KHÔNG TRUNG (Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere) Vietnam-France-Norway-Germany, 2014, col., 98’

Director: Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp. Screenplay: Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp. Cinematography: Phạm Quang Minh. Editing: Gustavo Vasco, Jacques Comets. Sound: Nicolas d’Halluin, Jean-Guy Véran.

Costumes: Nguyễn Diem Huong. Art direction: Phạm Quang Vĩnh, Nguyễn Dân Nam. Cast: Nguyễn Thuỳ Anh (Huyen), Hoàng Hà (Tung), Trần Bảo Sơn (Hoang), Thanh Duy (Linh).

Production: Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp (VBLOCK Media). Co-production: Thierry Lenouvel (Ciné Sud Promotion), Alan Milligan (Filmfarms), David Lindner (Filmallee).

Huyen is a teenage girl who gets pregnant from a young loafer and finds herself forced to fall into prostitution in order to save money for an abortion. Ironically, the only customer who is willing to pay is a man who is obsessed by pregnant women. The situation becomes even more complicated because this man makes Huyen so happy that she almost forgets that there is a baby growing inside of her.

For her debut film, Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp chose to describe a marginalized humanity that tries to survive in Hanoi, a city caught in its daily chaos. The Vietnamese director narrates the precariousness of relationships, the difficulty and the consequences of choices made, talks about sexual obsessions, managing to insert in the raw realism of situations, touches of genre cinema, from melodrama to horror. Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere is a film that by showing the drama of a young pregnant girl who wants to have an abortion but does not have the necessary means, explores with profound visual tension the mutation of bodies, elaborating an original discourse on sexual condition.

Born in 1982, Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp is one of the leading personalities in Vietnamese independent cinema. She directed several short films and documentaries. In 2008 she founded VBLOCK Media, an independent production company specialized in art films and experimental projects, which produced Bi, Don’t Be Afraid (2009) by Phan Dang Di, winner of several awards in international film festivals. Between 2010 and 2013 she worked in the production of her debut film, Flapping the Middle of Nowhere, which was supported by numerous international funds.

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NIČIJE DETE (No One’s Child) Serbia, 2014, col., 95’

Director: Vuk Ršumović. Screenplay: Vuk Ršumović. Cinematography: Damjan Radovanović.

Editing: Mirko Bojović. Music: Jura Ferina, Pavao Miholjević. Sound: Nikola Cvijanović.

Costumes: Maja Mirković. Art Direction: Jelena Sopić. Cast: Denis Murić (Pućke), Pavle Čemerikić (Žika), Isidora Janković (Alisa), Miloš Timotijević (Ilke). Production: Miroslav Mogorović (Art&Popcorn). Co-production: Vuk Ršumović (BaBoon Production). International Distribution: Soul Food Distribution.

In the spring of 1988 a wild boy is found deep in the Bosnian mountains living amongst wolves.

He is given the name of Haris and sent to an orphanage in Belgrade to be taken care of by Ilke. He becomes inseparable from the little Žika and slowly starts pronouncing his first words. In 1992, in the midst of war, local authorities force him to go back to Bosnia where he is given a rifle and sent to the frontline. One night, for the first time in his life, the boy makes a decision entirely of his own.

This is a very strong story of a wild boy twice abandoned by men. No One’s Child is narratively well structured, owing to many children’s cinema classics such as Truffaut’s The Wild Child, with a wrenching ending. The film is universal by talking about abandoned children that search for their own path but are repelled by the world, of young people who are swept away by war. It is a reflection about the contrast between nature and civilization, assuming further meanings, beyond the fact that it’s set in the Balkans at the beginning of the war.

Vuk Ršumović was born in Belgrade in 1975. He studied cinema, theatre, television and radio at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. He wrote screenplays for TV series, short films, animation films and documentaries. Furthermore, he is an active author of TV programmes. In 2007 he founded his own production company, BaBoon Production. Besides his commitment with cinema and television, he also collaborates with the main Serbian theatres. No One’s Child is his debut film.

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TERRE BATTUE (40-Love) France-Belgio, 2014, col., 95’

Director: Stéphane Demoustier. Screenplay: Stéphane Demoustier, Gaëlle Macé.

Cinematography: Julien Poupard. Editing: Damien Maestraggi. Art Director: Paul Rouschop.

Costumes: Anne-Sophie Gledhill. Sound: Emmanuel Bonnat, Julie Brenta, Vincent Verdoux.

Cast: Olivier Gourmet (Jérôme), Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (Laura), Charles Mérienne (Ugo).

Production: Frédéric Jouve (Les Films Velvet). Associate Producer: Marie Lecoq. Co-Production: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Les Films du Fleuve), Stéphane Demoustier and Guillaume Dreyfus (Année Zéro), Olivier Pére and Rémi Burah (Arte France Cinéma), Arlette Zylberberg (RTBF). International distribution: Films Distribution.

Jérôme, a senior executive, has just left his company. Determined to never work for nobody else ever again, he attempts to set up his own company, come what may, even ignoring the reluctance of his wife Laura. Ugo, their 11-year-old son, is a tennis player and a promising champion. To reach his goal, he must make it into the Roland Garros national training centre. Just like his dad, he’s willing to do whatever it takes to make it. Together, Ugo and Jérôme will realize that not all rules can be bent in the quest for success.

The borderline is implacable: you are in or you are out. In tennis as in life. The strategy is risky and making a mistake could compromise the job of a conniving father as well as the dream of a young son of becoming a champion. In a debut that holds the audience’s breath, Stéphane Demoustier creates a “Dardenne-style” filmic narrative that, like a tennis match, proceeds in alternating rhythms between rigour and twists. A contemporary existential drama/thriller embellished by a superb cast: Olivier Gourmet and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.

Stéphane Demoustier was born in Lille, northern France in 1977. His short films have been selected by numerous film festivals and awarded prizes both in France and abroad: Fille du calvaire (2012), Bad Gones (2011), Des noeuds das la tête (2010), Dans la jungle des villes (2009). In 2013 he made a documentary, Les petits Joeurs describing the sporting life of three children taking part in the French tennis championship. Terre Battue is his first feature length film.

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VILLA TOUMA Palestine, 2014, col., 85’

Director: Suha Arraf. Screenplay: Suha Arraf. Cinematography: Yaron Scharf. Editing: Arik Lahav-Leibovich. Music: Boaz Schory. Sound: Gil Toren. Art direction: Eytan Levi. Costumes: Hamada Atallha. Cast: Ula Tabari (Violette), Nisreen Faour (Juliette), Cherien Dabis (Antoinette), Maria Zreik (Badia). Production: Suha Arraf (Bailasan).

Three unmarried aristocratic Christian sisters from Ramallah have been unable to come to terms with the new reality of occupation and the mass migration of Palestine’s aristocracy. In order to survive, they lock themselves away in their villa, clinging desperately to the nostalgia of their former glory. One day, their orphan niece Badia, walks into their lives and turns their world upside down. To preserve the family’s name, the three sisters try to marry her off to an eligible aristocratic Christian man. Will dragging Badia to every funeral, wedding, and church mass result in finding a good husband for her?

Palestinian filmmaker Suha Arraf, already being a screenwriter of films inhabited by strong female figures (The Syrian Bride and Lemon Tree), makes her directing debut with a film that enacts the resistance of four women towards social change. Last exponents of the Christian aristocratic dynasty of Ramallah, these women live locked up in their villa facing the past and apparently untouched by the daily life of sieged Palestine. Villa Touma, called as such after their family name, is a melodrama that explores a complex labyrinth of family dynamics, interpreted by a group of actresses that in an exemplary way outline emotions that are at the same time repressed and emerging.

Suha Arraf was born in the Palestinian village of Melia, near the Lebanese border. She began her filmmaking career as a documentary producer. Among her works, she directed and produced the documentary Women of Hamas (2010), which was awarded in several international film festivals.

She wrote the screenplays of The Syrian Bride (2004) and Lemon Tree (2008), both directed by Eran Riklis. Thanks to the latter’s script, she won the Best Screenplay Award at the Asia Pacific Screen Award and was nominated for Best Screenplay at the European Film Awards.

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ZERRUMPELT HERZ (The Council of Birds) Germany, 2014, col., 80’

Director: Tim Kröger. Screenplay: Roderick Warich, Timm Kröger. Cinematography: Roland Stuprich. Editing: Jann Anderegg. Music: John Gürtler. Sound: Aljoscha Haupt, Heiko Nickerl, Oscar Stiebitz. Art Direction: Cosima Vallenzer. Costumes: Sarai Feuerherdt. Cast: Thorsten Wien (Paul Leinert), Eva-Maria Jost (Anna Leinert), Daniel Krauss (Wilhelm Krück), Christian Blümel (Otto Schiffmann), Andreas Conrad (Dr. Mandelbrodt), Theo Leutert (Johannes Leinert).

Production: Viktoria Stolpe, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.

In 1929 music teacher Paul Leinert receives an unexpected letter from his old friend Otto Schiffmann, a young and talented composer who has moved away from Berlin after a failed marriage. The letter is an invitation for Paul to come and visit Otto in his forest cabin – and to become familiar with his new work, a long-awaited symphony. Taking along his wife Anna together with his colleague Willi, the three find Otto’s cabin but their host is nowhere to be seen. As they go looking for him, Paul notices something odd about the song of the local birds…

Every forest has its own secret. A composer in crisis disappears merging his existence with the green of conifers and musk and with the chant of birds. His friend Paul receives a letter with the news of the creation of a new symphony. With his wife Anna and his colleague Willi, they go looking for their artist friend. They let themselves be tested. Euphoria and passion do not sooth their small wounds.

They will make new discoveries, giving space to life and death. Wagner and romantic pantheism inspire German director Timm Kröger in this surprising graduation film. Byron wrote that “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore”. That is exactly what happens. While hearts are broken and a woman looks into the clear costal horizon, the sounds of the soul and nature’s language blur until the last moment.

Timm Kröger was born in 1985 in Itzehoe, northern Germany. He began his studies at the European Film College in Ebeltoft (Denmark), where he also spent a year as a teacher assistant in 2008. Following an internship at ARRI Rental in Munich, he studied documentary film at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg. He works as a screenwriter, director and cinematographer. Zerrumpelt Herz is both his graduation film and his debut feature.

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Opening Film – Special Event Out of Competition

MELBOURNE Iran, 2014, col., 93’

Director: Nima Javidi. Screenplay: Nima Javidi. Cinematography: Hooman Behmanesh.

Editing: Sepideh Abdolvahab. Music: Hamed Sabet. Sound: Iraj Shahzadi. Art direction: Keyvan Moghadam. Costumes: Keyvan Moghadam. Cast: Payman Maadi (Amir), Negar Javaherian (Sara), Mani Haghighi (Mr Mosayebi), Shirin Yazdanbakhsh (Amir’s mother), Elham Korda (nanny), Roshanak Gerami (Nazi), Mehrnoosh Shahhosseini (Shifa), Alireza Ostadi (dealer). Production: Javad Norouzbeigi (Qabe Aseman Art Institute). Internatonal distribution: Iranian Independents.

Amir and Sara are a young couple on their way to Melbourne to continue their studies. However, just a few hours before the departure of their flight, they are unintentionally involved in a tragic event.

Imprisoned in a house dreaming about Australia. It is there that both Amir and Sara imagine their future, far away from conventions and prejudices of which they feel estranged, although fundamentally rooting in their country. An unexpected event transforms the present into a labyrinth of the Being, kafkian and surreal, from where only by doing something against their Conscience can the couple achieve an apparent liberation. Melbourne is an extraordinary debut that although reminding the cinema of Asghar Farhadi (and basically of Polanski) it’s cloaked by surprising originality, feeding the narrative of atmospheres and tensions of rare intensity. Iranian and universal, the film casts as the leading character the unforgettable “husband” of A Separation.

Nima Javidi was born in 1980. He graduated in mechanical engineer and has directed six short films – Marathon Paralyzed Champion (1999), A Call for O (2001), The Poor Earth (2004), Changeable Weather (2007), Crack (2009), Catnap (2010); two documentaries – Person (2007), An Ending to an Ancient Profession (2007); and more than thirty commercials. Melbourne is his first feature film.

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Closing Film – Special Event Out of Competition

ARANCE E MARTELLO (The Market) Italy, 2014, col., 105’

Director: Diego Bianchi. Screenplay: Diego Bianchi. Cinematography: Roberto Forza. Editing: Alessandro Pantano, Diego Bianchi. Sound: Angelo Bonanni. Art direction: Alessandra Mura.

Costumes: Valentina Mezzani. Cast: Diego Bianchi (Diego), Giulia Mancini (Eleonora), Lorena Cesarini (Virginia), Francesca Acquaroli (Armando), Luciano Miele (Enea), Ludovico Tersigni (Ludovico), Emanuele Grazioli (Goffredo), Antonella Attili (Trieste), Stefano Altieri (Rivo), Ilaria Spada (Amanda), Giorgio Tirabassi (Mayor). Production: Domenico Procacci (Fandango). Coproduction: Rai Cinema. International Distribution: Fandango Sales.

Arance e martello (The Market) is a ‘historical’ film, a ‘costume’ drama set in the hot summer of 2011, in the midst of the Berlusconi era. The life of a quiet corner market is shaken when the Municipality decides to close it down. The only political organisation that people can turn to is the local section of the Democratic Party, which is separated from the market by a concrete wall, built to allow the construction of the subway. This will be a paradoxical and unique day, funny and dramatic at the same time, in which everything becomes a satirical paradigm of recent Italian history.

Do the right thing in Orvieto Street, neighbourhood of San Giovanni, Rome. As in Spike Lee’s film, openly and cheerfully quoted by Diego “Zoro” Bianchi in his film Arance e martello (The Market), the right thing to do is complicated. The mix of a varied and multi-ethnic humanity who coexist in the local market that the municipality wants to shut down, brings to surface racisms more or less aware, political contrasts more or less mature. The outcome is an entertaining film, where the mix of languages – the satiric tone of the journalist video-maker and the more cinematographic one of the popular genre par excellence, the comedy – thus generates a new and not at all banal re-reading of recent Italian history.

Diego Bianchi, aka Zoro, opened his blog of occasional opinions in 2003. From 2008 to 2011, he shot videos for the series Tolleranza Zoro, first made available on Youtube and later broadcasted on Italian television. He directed the documentaries Finale di partita (2011) and Anno Zoro – Finale di partita 2012 (2013). In collaboration with Simone Conte, he published the book Kansas City. La Roma di Luis Enrique. Cronache tifose di una revoluciòn complicata (2012). He has been a columnist for the newspaper Il riformista and curated his personal blog on the website of the Italian TV channel La7. He is currently a columnist for the magazine Venerdì di Repubblica. Since March 2013, he writes and hosts the TV program Gazebo on the Italian TV channel Raitre.

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