NEW HORIZONS TOURNÉE 2019

NEW HORIZONS TOURNÉE
at Małopolska Garden of Arts
January 7-10, 2019

Kino Pod Baranami presents a review of the most interesting productions from the 18. New Horizons International Film Festival. The programme includes preview screenings of three award-winning dramas and the Best European Documentary Film of 2018, which will take place at Małopolska Garden of Arts.

During this year’s tour of the acclaimed festival, viewers in Krakow will see the film Ága by Milko Lazarov, which closed the Berlin Film Festival in 2018. The protagonist of the film lives with his wife in a yurt standing on the frozen waters of the Lena River. All his life he has been hunting reindeer, which can no longer be found in the surrounding white plains. The only thing left for the elderly couple are the stories of the old world and a memory of their daughter, who has chosen a different life. 

Also appearing on screen will be the newest production by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, creator of the Golden Palm winner Winter sleep. The Wild Pear Tree is a melancholic tale about a young, aspiring writer, who has to find a place for himself after returning to his homeland. Filmed within enchanting landscapes of Turkish countryside, the story is based primarily on perfectly written, extensive dialogues referring to philosophy, religious tradition and ethics.

Girl by Lukas Dhont, the best debut of the last Cannes Film Festival, will also be presented. Belgian upcoming director tells the story of a young ballet dancer with a great dream. All she needs for it to come true is to persuade the whole world she is not a boy. The film stars Victor Polster, a dancer nominated for the European Film Award. Girl will soon be fighting for a Golden Globe for the best foreign language film. 

As part of the tour, documentary Bergman: A Year in a Life directed by Jane Magnusson, will return to the screen. The filmmaker looks at an important moment in the life of legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, marked by the premieres of The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. Through conversations with his friends and colleagues, Magnusson avoids putting the master on the pedestal. She creates a thoroughly honest portrait of an extraordinary artist, also showing how imperfect he was as a human being. The viewers will have a chance to hear Liv Ullmann, Barbra Streisand, Lars von Trier and Lena Andre, who worked with him for many years in the theatre, talk about their experiences with Bergman and his work. Bergman: A Year in a Life has received the European Film Award for the best documentary of 2018.

All films will be presented with Polish and English subtitles.

Film screenings will take place at the auditorium programmed by Kino Pod Baranami at Małopolska Garden of Arts (ul. Rajska 12).

PROGRAMME:

Monday, January 7
20.15 ÁGA | ÁGA
dir. Milko Lazarov, Bulgaria/Germany/France 2018, 96'

Tuesday, January 8
20.15 BERGMAN: A YEAR IN A LIFE | BERGMAN - ETT ÅR, ETT LIV
dir. Jane Magnusson, Sweden/Norway 2018, 117’

Wednesday, January 9
20.15 THE WILD PEAR TREE | AHLAT AĞACI
dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey/Macedonia/France/Germany/Bosnia and Herzegovina
/Bulgaria/Sweden 2018, 188’

Thursday, January 10
20.15 GIRL | GIRL
dir. Lukas Dhont, Belgium/The Netherlands 2018, 105’

TICKETS:

22 PLN (regular) | 15 PLN (discount)

Entry pass (4 films): 44 PLN

*Tickets available at the cinema’s box office, at the entrance to the auditorium in Małopolska Garden of Arts and online.

**To buy the Entry pass online, contact: kasa@kinopodbaranami.pl

ABOUT THE FILMS:

ÁGA | ÁGA
dir. Milko Lazarov, Bulgaria/Germany/France 2018, 96'

Polish premiere: January 25, 2019

Berlin IFF 2018: closing screening
Golden Rose Bulgarian Feature Film Festival 2018: Best Film, Best Director (Milko Lazarov), Best Cinematography (Kaloyan Bozhilov), Accredited Journalists' Award, The Critics Guild Award (UBF)
IFF in Cairo 2018: Best Film at Cairo Film Critics' Week
IFF in Lublana 2018: Audience Award
Sarajevo FF 2018: Best Film
IFF in Valladolid 2018: Best Upcoming Director (Milko Lazarov)
Chukotka International Arctic Film Festival 2018: Best Film, Special Jury Prize

Nanook and Sedna live alone in a frozen land somewhere in the north of Yakutia, where the snow is so white it burns your eyes and the frost causes your cheeks to tingle. Hunting caribou, fishing and tanning hides, they have lived together for many years, which, like the harsh climate, has left its mark on their tired, noble faces. However, disrupting the happy autumn of their lives are painful memories of their daughter, Ága, who left home years earlier. What happened between them? Is there any chance for a reconciliation? These questions come up again when the elderly couple is visited by Chen, a young boy who says that he saw Ága in the city, which might as well be in another galaxy. Bulgarian director Milko Lazarov explores the distance between monumental nature - evoking both humility and fear - and the advance of modernity.
(Adam Kruk for www.nowehoryzonty.pl)

BERGMAN: A YEAR IN A LIFE | BERGMAN - ETT ÅR, ETT LIV
dir. Jane Magnusson, Sweden/Norway 2018, 117’

Cannes IFF 2018: nominated for a Golden Eye for the Best Documentary
European Film Awards 2018: Best European Documentary

1957 was an important year for Ingmar Bergman, mainly because that was when The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries premiered, which earned him a place in cinematic pantheon of the time. Jane Magnusson's documentary focuses on this moment in his career, but it also deals with the years that led up to that moment and the period that followed, covering, in fact, the director's entire life. The portrait that emerges from the meandering narrative is surprisingly ambivalent. On the one hand, Bergman is presented as a great artist, rightly admired and rewarded. On the other hand, issues related to his difficult character are taken up again and again: his mythomania, egoism, despotism and tendency for betrayal. In short, the film gives us something more than yet another two-dimensional puff piece.
(Piotr Mirski for www.nowehoryzonty.pl)

THE WILD PEAR TREE | AHLAT AĞACI
dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey/Macedonia/France/Germany/Bosnia and Herzegovina
/Bulgaria/Sweden 2018, 188’

Polish premiere: May 11, 2019

Cannes IFF 2018: Main Competition
Ghent IFF 2018: Main Competition

In The Wild Pear Tree, Nuri Bilge Ceylan continues the poetics that brought him the Palme d'Or in 2014 for Winter Sleep. At the heart of the film is once again a screenplay filled with details and long conversations, which Ceylan stages with reverence worthy of the "Turkish Chekhov." The protagonist in The Wild Pear Tree is a teaching graduate named Sinan (Aydin Doğu Demirkol), who, before his final exams, returns to his native Çan in northwest Turkey. Like a visitor from a big city, he looks upon the provincial society that he left behind years earlier with a combination of aversion and tolerance. Life in Çan gradually engages him more and more, however, and his dreams of success - and of becoming a writer - turn out to be difficult to achieve. In the saturated colors of the changing seasons (especially the red and gold of autumn), this film portrait of a multigenerational family is permeated with nightmarish visions and philosophical disputes about the Quran. Though seemingly minimalistic, The Wild Pear Tree is a substantial film about rebellious youth that has to come to terms with the legacy of its forefathers.
(Sebastian Smoliński for www.nowehoryzonty.pl)

GIRL | GIRL
dir. Lukas Dhont, Belgium/The Netherlands 2018, 105’

Polish premiere: March 22, 2019

Golden Globes 2019: nominated for the Best Motion Picture - Foreign Language Award
Cannes IFF 2018: Golden Camera for the Best Debut, Queer Palm, FIPRESCI Prize, Best Actor in Un Certain Regard section (Victor Polster)
European Film Awards 2018: European Discovery, nominated for European Film and European Actor (Victor Polster) Awards
Goya Awards 2019: nominated for the Best European Film Award
San Sebastián IFF 2018: Audience Award, Sebastiane Award
London IFF 2018: Sutherland Award
Odessa IFF 2018: Golden Duke for Best Acting (Victor Polster)
Stockholm IFF 2018: Best Actor (Victor Polster)
Zurich IFF 2018: Best International Feature Film

Fifteen-year-old Lara is determined to fulfill her dream of getting into a prestigious ballet school and having a career as a ballerina. As a sensitive girl, she also dreams of finally getting out of the boy's body that she's been imprisoned in since birth. First-time director Lukas Dhont, one of the discoveries at this year's Cannes Festival, made a film that is mature and extraordinarily subtle about how oppressive one's own body can be and how exhausting it can be to fight its limitations -all the more so when that body is young and impatient, restless and seeking its own identity, and everything has to happen here and now. Girl also owes its success to charismatic dancer Victor Polster, who, with his great performance, transcends culturally imposed gender stereotypes, revealing the painful imperfection of biological definitions and how they are perceived in society.
(Katarzyna Wolanin for www.nowehoryzonty.pl)