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LUX Film Days 2017 (EN)
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LUX FILM DAYS
November 8-9, 2017
Kino Pod Baranami
LUX FILM DAYS in Kino Pod Baranami is a fantastic chance to see the films, which have a chance of winning this year’s LUX Film Prize, an honour established by the European Parliament. The nominated pictures will be shown simultaneously across Europe. After the screenings, the audience will have an opportunity to see the Q&A sessions with the films’ creators, as well as ask their own questions via Twitter.
Since 2007, the European Parliament LUX FILM PRIZE casts an annual spotlight on films that go to the heart of European public debate. The Parliament believes that cinema, a mass cultural medium, can be an ideal vehicle for debate and reflection on Europe and its future. During the third edition of LUX Film Days, European cinemas participating in the project will present films nominated for the prize at the same time. On November 8-9, viewers in Krakow and across the continent will see two acclaimed productions, as well as Q&A broadcasts with filmmakers.
On Wednesday, November 8, Kino Pod Baranami will present 120 BPM, a french drama by Robin Campillo telling a story of organisations fighting with AIDS. After the screening, a discussion with the main actors: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart and Arnaud Valois will be streamed straight from the EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam.
On Thursday, November 9, Valeska Grisebach will bring the classic American film genre to a remote place somewhere near the Greek-Bulgarian border in the film Western. It is a tale of a tense and complicated relationship between a group of German construction workers and the local community living in the Bulgarian countryside. The screening will be followed by a broadcast of a Q&A session with the film’s director Valeska Grisebach, taking place in BOZAR Fine Arts Centre in Brussels.
Both films will be presented in original versions, with both Polish and English subtitles. Q&A sessions will be conducted in English.
The viewers can participate in the discussions by asking their own questions via Twitter, using the hashtag #luxprize. The Q&A sessions will be also streamed live on Facebook.
Free tickets for each film will be available at the box office on the day of the screening.
The films selected for the LUX FILM PRIZE competition help to air different views on some of the main social and political issues of the day and, as such, contribute to building a stronger European identity. They celebrate the universal reach of European values, illustrate the diversity of European traditions and shed light on the process of European integration. When Parliament created the prize, it decided to focus on distribution, trying to overcome organisational and economic difficulties, as well as language barriers. LUX FILM PRIZE has helped publicise films that might have otherwise been seen and discovered by few people and has put the spotlight on urgent topical issues.
PROGRAMME:
Wednesday, November 8
19.30 120 BPM (BEATS PER MINUTE) | 120 BATTEMENTS PAR MINUTE
dir. Robin Campillo, France 2017, 144' (with PL & EN subtitles)
+ Q&A broadcast: actors Nahuel Pérez Biscayart and Arnaud Valois
Thursday, November 9
19.30 WESTERN | WESTERN
dir. Valeska Grisebach, Germany/Bulgaria/Austria, 121' (with PL & EN subtitles)
+ Q&A broadcast: director, Valeska Grisebach
ABOUT THE FILMS:
120 BPM (BEATS PER MINUTE) | 120 BATTEMENTS PAR MINUTE
dir. Robin Campillo, France 2017, 144'
Cannes IFF 2017: main competition, Grand Prize of the Jury (Robin Campillo), FIPRESCI Prize, François Chalais Award, 'Queer' Palm
San Sebastián IFF 2017: best film
LUX Film Prize 2017: official selection
In Campillo’s film, Euphoria meets despair whilst the racing heartbeat resembles a ticking time-bomb. It really is a race against time, because it’s the 1990s, the AIDS epidemic is raging in France cloaked in the silent acquiescence of the government and pharmaceutical industry. Parisian ACT UP activists try to break through that silence with rallies, marches and vigils. 120 Beats Per Minute is filled with passion and fury, a portrait of youth’s encounter with death, a full-throated politically-charged film that includes a love story. It is also a collective image of a generation, maybe the last of its kind, that passionately believed in the possibility of change and that politics had to be fought for in the streets. Winner of the Cannes Grand Prix (Pedro Almodóvar headed the jury that year), Campillo’s work revisits the 1990s when the director was an ACT UP activist and lost his partner to AIDS.
(Małgorzata Sadowska for www.nowehoryzonty.pl)
TRAILER:
WESTERN | WESTERN
dir. Valeska Grisebach, Germany/Bulgaria/Austria, 121'
Cannes IFF 2017: nominated for best film in Un Certain Regard section
LUX Film Prize 2017: official selection
Art Film Festival 2017: Blue Angel for the best director
T-Mobile New Horizons IFF 2017: Grand Prix of the International Competition, FIPRESCI Prize
Western is set not only on the Bulgarian-Greek border, but also on the border of two foreign worlds: that of the local peasants and the German workers who are building infrastructure in this godforsaken province. In an idyllic landscape under the beating sun, a game for domination, lined with fear, is playing out. Co-produced by Maren Ade (Toni Erdmann), the film features a charismatic protagonist, a former mercenary named Meinhard (played by amateur actor Meinhard Neumann, who emanates a lecherous charm like classic Hollywood stars) who betrays his tribe: he chooses the company of despised locals, for which the others from the building project cannot forgive him. Grisebach builds tension, unravels cultural threads and emotional dependencies, portrays male rituals, and raises questions about identity. As the title would suggest, the film follows the convention of a Western, where the Bulgarians are the Indians, the Germans cowboys, the southern European landscape plays the Wild West, and the mustached Meinhard is the Lone Ranger. Only John Ford and Claire Denis have been able to film men in this way before.
Małgorzata Sadowska for www.nowehoryzonty.pl)
TRAILER:
PARTNERS:
