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EU Delegation presents its first-ever online EU filmfest for Viva Europa 2020

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By THEPHILBIZNEWS STAFF

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festive VIVA EUROPA which has been promoting European culture and collaboration with Filipino artists has changed its celebration significantly. And for the first time, the VIVA EUROPA which has been shown in selected theaters in the Philippines for the past years will now be available online.

Conscious of the need to protect public health and at the same time to provide the much-needed entertainment at homes, the EU Delegation presents its first EUFFestival – online film festival until 18 June.

The films come from European countries such as Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Romania, Netherlands, Slovenia and United Kingdom. These are films ranging from comedy to drama and all are multi-awarded and have never been shown in the Philippines.

Aside from the 11 full-length films, 8 short films are also accessible during this period. The films are FREE and subtitled in English.

Here are the film details:

TITLE: COLD CASE HAMMARSKJÖLD

NAME OF DIRECTOR: Mads Brügger

Date of production: 2019

Country: Slovenia

Duration: 82min

Genre: documentary

Original language version: English, Danish

Subtitles: English, Spanish

Synopsis: It’s midnight. Rhodesia’s jungle is dressed in a steaming, reeking black. A propeller is heard in the distance, bearing down upon us. Many years later, stories are still told about Belgian mercenaries creeping around in the dark that night. In the plane is UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and his entourage of fifteen persons, and in a few seconds, they will not exist anymore. From this moment, you can draw a direct line to the Congolese civil war, Mobutu’s regime, the ongoing and accelerating exploitation of Africa and the total post-colonial nightmare as we know it today – all this due to the single incident taking place right now.

Genre: Documentary

Topics: Politics

Links:

Film profile in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Film review and trailer in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Interview of Mads Brügger in English, French, Spanish and Italian

TITLE: CONSEQUENCES

NAME OF DIRECTOR: Darko Štante

Date of production: 2018

Country: Slovenia

Duration: 82min

Genre: fiction

Original language version: Slovene

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Arabic

Synopsis: After being sent to a youth detention centre, 18-year-old Andrej has to fight for his place within the group of inmates while getting closer to Zeljko, their informal leader, and struggling to keep his repressed secret in the dark.

Genre: Drama

Topics: Youth, Teenagers, Drugs, Alcohol, Violence, Gangster

Jury selection criteria: An accomplished first feature which surprises for many reasons. It is not the classical coming out of age film, because the teenagers portrayed in the film are not simply the testosterones alpha man they could initially seem. The “bad boys” attitude hides much more about their “mal-être de vivre”.

Consequences puts deeper questions about their feeling, about families unable to guide and to listen, about the society incapable of addressing youngsters the right way, or social services that are losing their challenge of utility and effectiveness, eventually about sexual borders that are so easy to cross.

Links:

Film profile in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Film review and trailer in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Interview of Darko Stante in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Main Awards: Slovene Film Festival award for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Slovene Film Critics Association award for Best Feature Film

TITLE: HOMO SAPIENS

NAME OF DIRECTOR: Nikolaus Geyrhalter

Date of production: 2016

Country: Austria

Duration: 94min

Genre: documentary

Synopsis: Homo Sapiens is a film about the finiteness and fragility of human existence and the end of the industrial age, and what it means to be a human being. What will remain of our lives after we’re gone? Empty spaces, ruins, cities increasingly overgrown with vegetation, crumbling asphalt: the areas we currently inhabit, though humanity has disappeared. Now abandoned and decaying, gradually reclaimed by nature after being taken from it so long ago. Homo Sapiens is an ode to humanity as seen from a possible future scenario. It intends to sharpen our eyes for the here and now, and our consciousness of the present.

Genre: Documentary

Topics: Nature, Photography

Jury selection criteria: With a visual force to which only the big screen can do justice, the director films buildings deserted by the men who built them, where nature has reclaimed its rightful home. Science-fiction documentary, post-apocalyptic reality.

Links:

Film profile in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Film trailer in English

Interview of Nikolaus Geyrhalter in English, French, Spanish and Italian

TITLE: MY BROTHER CHASES DINOSAURS

NAME OF DIRECTOR: Stefano Cipani

Date of production: 2019

Country: Italy

Duration: 102min

Genre: fiction

Original language version: Italian

Subtitles: English

Synopsis: Jack has a brother, Giò, who has Down syndrome. As a child, Jack believed the tender lie his parents told him, that Giò was a special being with superpowers, as in a comic book. Now that he is about to go to high school, however, Jack no longer believes that his brother is a superhero, in fact, he is almost ashamed of him, especially since he met Arianna, the first love of his life. Jack cannot allow himself to make any gaffes of bad impressions with the girl of his dreams and looking after his little brother and his unpredictable behaviour soon becomes a burden, to the point that Jack pretends not to have any brother and hides the existence of Giò from the eyes of his new classmates and, above all, of Arianna. But you cannot be loved by someone as you are, if you cannot love someone despite his faults and this is a life-lesson that Jack will have to learn: it will be his brother Giò to teach him that, with his straight ways, his unique point of view and his simple but surprisingly wise words.

Genre: Drama, family comedy

Topics: Society, Teenager, handicap

Jury selection criteria: Multiple award-winning film.

Links:

Film profile in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Review and film trailer in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Interview filmmaker in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Main Awards: Young award, European Film Awards

TITLE: ONE STEP BEHIND THE SERAPHIM

NAME OF DIRECTOR: Daniel Sandu

Date of production: 2017

Country: Romania

Duration: 147min

Genre: fiction

Original language version: Romanian

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Arabic

Synopsis: Gabriel is a 15-year-old teenager who wants to become a priest and is admitted to an Orthodox seminary. He starts by trying to fit in, but eventually realizes the system is completely corrupted and abusive. Caught up in the fight for power between an incorruptible, but the abusive priest and a cunning, crooked and unscrupulous secular teacher, the students learn that lying, stealing and betraying are skills they have to master in order to survive in the seminary. Who will graduate and become a priest? What kind of priests will they make after spending several years in this system?

Genre: Drama

Topics: Manhood, Religion, Society, Teenager

Jury selection criteria: This multiple award-winning film dramatizes the director’s own experience when studying theology

in a Romanian Orthodox seminary. With remarkable performances by its young cast One Step Behind the Seraphim keenly paints its critic on institutional corruption with unscrupulous control by those in power.

Links:

Film profile in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Film trailer in English

Interview of Daniel Sandu in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Main Awards:  Bucharest International Film Festival award for Best Screenplay, Gopo Awards for Best Feature Film, Best Directing, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best First Feature Film

TITLE: RAY&LIZ

NAME OF DIRECTOR: Richard Billingham

Date of production: 2018

Country: United-Kingdom

Duration: 107min

Genre: fiction

Original language version: English

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Arabic

Synopsis: On the outskirts of Birmingham and the margins of society, the Billingham family perform extreme rituals and break cultural taboos as they muddle through a life decided by factors beyond their control.

Genre: Drama

Topics: Society, Family issues, Alcoholism, Photography, Poverty

Jury selection criteria: A superb albeit bleak film that centres on the 1980s austerity riddled white working class family

during Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. Ray and Liz is a blend of the harsh realism of poverty and brutal study of a family falling apart as a result of the stringency measures taken by their government.

Links:

Film profile in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Film trailer in English

Interview of Richard Billingham in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Main Awards: Locarno International Film Festival: Special Jury Prize, Seville European Film Festival: Grand Jury Award, British Independent Film Awards: Douglas Hickox Award

TITLE: SMUGGLING HENDRIX

NAME OF DIRECTOR: Marios Piperides

Date of production: 2018

Country: Cyprus, Germany

Duration: 82min

Genre: feature

Original language version: Greek

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Russian

Synopsis: Yiannis, a faded musician who is about to leave Cyprus for a better life abroad, sees his plans turned upside down when his dog runs away and crosses the Buffer Zone that separates the “Greek South” from the “Turkish North”. Can he smuggle him back in?

Genre: Comedy

Topics: Politics, Society, Animals, Friendship

Jury selection criteria: This charming and delightful comedy, set in the divided city of Nicosia, gives a timely reminder of the absurdity of the walls that we continue to build between nations at our own pitfall.

Links:

Film profile in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Film review and trailer in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Interview of Marios Piperides in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Main Awards: Tribeca Film Festival award for Best International Narrative Feature, Quebec City International Film Festival: Cinephile Award, Les Arcs European Film Festival: Audience Choice Prize, Hellenic Film Academy Awards for Best Screenplay

TITLE: STRANGER IN PARADISE

NAME OF DIRECTOR: Guido Hendrikx

Date of production: 2016

Country: Netherlands

Duration: 77min

Genre: Documentary

Original language version: English

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Arabic

Synopsis: In a classroom in Sicily, just inside the walls of Fortress Europe, recently arrived refugees receive lessons from a teacher who has some rather unbalanced traits. One moment he mercilessly rejects the refugees – the next, mollifyingly, he embraces them. Operating at the intersection of documentary and fiction, STRANGER IN PARADISE investigates the power relations between Europe and refugees. Europe is represented by a teacher who drags his class of refugees down into his despair. A plea that borders on the immoral; a welcome charged with a guilt complex; and the compromise between these, made policy: STRANGER IN PARADISE is an unflinching film essay on the mechanisms through which Europe tackles the refugees’ desire for happiness.

Genre: Documentary

Topics: Migration, Politics, Current Affairs, Justice, Social Issues

Jury selection criteria: Stranger in Paradise is a timely documentary that offers a moment to reflect on the plight of the current world refugee crisis.  It address the waves of migrants from Africa and the Middle East and the often insularity and ignorance of Europe at a time when the tectonic plates that binds our world are slowly ebbing away.

Links:

Film profile in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Film review and trailer in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Main Awards: Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival Special Jury Award, Madrid International Documentary Film Festival Fugas Feature Film Competition.

TITLE: THE CONSTITUTION

NAME OF DIRECTOR: Rajko Grlic

Date of production: 2016

Country: Croatia, Slovenia, United Kingdom, Czech Republic

Duration: 82min

Genre: feature

Original language version: Croatian

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Arabic

Synopsis: Four very different people live in the same building but avoid each other because of differences in how they live their lives, what they believe in, and where they come from. They would probably never exchange a word, but misfortune pushes them towards each other. Their lives entangle in ways that profoundly challenge deep-held beliefs and prejudices surrounding material status, sexual orientation, nationality and religion. Slowly, and even painfully, they begin to open up to each other and recognize the essential humanity each of them possesses.

Genre: Drama, Comedy

Topics: Society, Politics, Religion, LGBT, Queer, Community

Jury selection criteria: The Constitution is far more than a film about a man ostracised because of his homosexuality. It is a film that intelligently explores and confronts the scornful legacy and the bitter inter-ethnic Yugoslav wars that continues to haunt present day independent Croatia.

Links:

Film profile in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Film review and trailer in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Interview of Rajko Grlic in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Main Awards: Montréal World Film Festival award for Best Film, Raindance Film Festival award for Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Performance

TITLE: THE MAGIC LIFE OF V.

NAME OF DIRECTOR: Tonislav Hristov

Date of production: 2019

Country: Finland

Duration: 82min

Genre: documentary

Original language version: Finnish

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Arabic

Synopsis: Haunted by childhood traumas, Veera is trying to become more independent through live roleplaying. As she guides herself and her mentally-challenged brother through worlds of multiple roles and identities, witches and wizards, she finds the courage to face the demons of her own past and her abusive father’s legacy.

Genre: Documentary

Topics: Youth, Teenagers, Society Issues, Family Issues, Alcohol

Jury selection criteria: A very strong story about a young woman who is trying to face her past, with all the demons. This film is told in very interesting ways and is full of drama. It is a very good film to speak about children rights.

Links:

Film profile in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Film trailer in English

Main Awards: Sofia International Film Festival award for Best Documentary Film

TITLE: WINTER FLIES

NAME OF DIRECTOR: Olmo Omerzu

Date of production: 2017

Country: Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, Slovakia

Duration: 85min

Genre: fiction

Original language version: Czech

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Arabic

Synopsis: Mischievously self-assured Mára and somewhat eccentric Heduš set out into the frozen wastes in search of adventure – by car, naturally. After all, Mára’s turning fifteen soon. A road movie about the flies that occasionally buzz around even in winter, and a story – before it ends at the police station – that tells of the elusive bond of boyhood friendship and the irrepressible desire to experience something, even if you don’t exactly know what.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Road Movie

Topics: Social Issues, Friendship, Teenagers

Jury selection criteria: Between road movie and murder mystery, these adventures of two teenagers of today, carried by two young stunning actors, renew the genre of the “apprenticeship” film using a bittersweet tone that will seduce widely.

Links:

Film profile in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Film review and trailer in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Interview of Olmo Omerzu in English, French, Spanish and Italian

Main Awards: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival award for Best Director, Czech Lions award for Best Film, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress

8 SHORT FILMS ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Tiles:

Tua Ingugu by Daniel Thomas

2019 – 8min – documentary

Synopsis: As the Xingu indigenous live in close symbiosis with water, rivers in Sao Paulo are perishing due to worrying levels of water pollution from chemicals used in the agrobusiness industry and plastic. This short movie captures the relationship between the Xingu community and their river, and the emotions of one of them when he is taken to see Sao Paulo rivers. A poetic movie to denounce water pollution and the challenging prospects for the future of both indigenous people and city folks.

Available subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Arabic

Hungry Seagull by Leon Wang

2019 – 6min – documentary

Synopsis: On an island not far from the mainland, the young father seagull is anxiously guarding the new born gulls by the nest and awaiting the return of the mother seagull. The mother seagull has given up everything she has, but the baby seagull is still hungry. The father seagull had flown away in search of more food…The main diet of black-tailed gulls is pelagic fish in the sea, molluscs and aquatic insects in coastal wetlands and estuaries. However, with the overfishing of offshore fish and the pollution of the marine environment, seagulls can catch fewer and fewer small fish in the upper layer.

Available subtitles: No dialogue

Olmo by Silvio Soldini

2019 – 8min – fiction

Synopsis: Olmo, eighty years old, looks out of the window of a building in the suburban area of a city. His eighty-year-old grandson Giulio is reading him an article from the newspaper about melting glaciers, the greenhouse effect, methane and CO2… “What is C-O-2?” asks the child. “Do you remember the carbon dioxide we studied?” says Grandpa. “The one the trees breathe?” asks Giulio. The day after, they’re leaving for a short tour instead of going to school, searching for an old tree.

Available subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Arabic

Qurut by Shahbranoo Sadat

2019 – 5min – documentary

Synopsis: It is dawn. Rural central Afghanistan, far away in a village. A young wo-man is milking a goat while her little boy is assisting her by holding the horns of the goat. There is a flock of goats and sheep waiting to be milked before the young shepherd takes them to the mountains to graze all day long. She cooks Quruti, one of the most popular meals in the entire Afghanistan but especially central Afghanistan. For some years people have been making less and less Quruti as they struggle to feed their animals because the mountain pastures have dried up. Climate change has affected rain patterns and soil fertility in the whole region.

Available subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Arabic

A Sunny Day by Faouzi Bensaïdi

2019 – 10min – fiction

Synopsis: Under the impacts of a changing climate, the world changes, it has already changed. In a distant and near future, both fantastic and absurd, men and wo-men survive as they can. Following a man, a slender figure between Tati and Buster Keaton, we discover through scenes of his daily life how devastating the effects of climate change are on humans and nature. How do we barricade against excessive heat or cold? How will it be to go to a supermarket, or a zoo filled with different animals and species? A disturbing and hilarious ride in the future, that is already our present.

Available subtitles: No dialogue

In One Drag by Alireza Hashempour

2016 – 3min – fiction

Synopsis: It’s late in the evening. A man leaves a building, lights a cigarette and smokes it in one drag. He casually flicks the stub away – everything as always. Only this time… all the cigarette butts in the city become alive.

Available subtitles: No dialogue

Tant de forêts by Burku Sankur and Geoffrey Godet

2014 – 3min – animation

Synopsis: The short film is based on a poem of Jacques Prévert. The poem speaks of the irony of the fact that newspaper warn us about deforestation although they are made of paper themselves.

Available subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Arabic

Kokota by Craig Norris

2016 – 29min – documentary

Synopsis: The Islet of Hope tells the story of Mbarouk’s quest to help Kokota. This short, 30 minutes documentary introduces viewers to the resilient people living on the front lines of climate change and explores how these unlikely heroes have managed to innovatively adapt to a warming climate while reforesting their island. This inspirational film promises to leave audiences around the world believing that simple solutions really can have huge impacts.

Available subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Arabic

So what are you waiting for? Sign into Festival Scope to receive your FREE passes.

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