The main idea of the Era New Horizons International Film Festival is to present innovative, original cinema from all over the world. The festival's name symbolizes new horizons in film language, new means of expression, and original themes.
This year's programme includes:
the New Horizons international competition
the Films About Art international competition, a new cycle presenting auteur documentaries about art and artists
the New Polish Films competition
a panorama of world cinema
films with awards from international festivals
documentaries / essays
creative visions of reality
wild nights
tongue-in-cheek films
new Canadian cinema
contemporary Swedish cinema
the Hungarian new wave (1960s-1970s)
retrospectives: eccentric Canadian director and screenwriter Guy Maddin, Tsai Ming-liang from Taiwan, Swedish master Jan Troell, New York experimentalist Jennifer Reeves, Hungarian director and screenwriter Miklós Jancsó, Krzysztof Zanussi, Piotr Dumała.
There will also be silent films with live music, stage performances, installations, exhibitions, presentations of the Canadian, Swedish, and Hungarian music scenes.
Michael Haneke, "The White Ribbon"
The opening film of the 9th festival is The White Ribbon directed by Michael Haneke, winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2009 Cannes festival. The film is set before World War I in a small town in northern Germany. The heroes are young members of a church choir who come from different backgrounds. They become witnesses, victims, probably also perpetrators in a series of tragic events which throw the local community into shock. The White Ribbon is a film about upbringing, which Haneke sees as the cause of a subsequent susceptibility to demoralizing ideas: fascism or communism. The film will be released in Poland on 13 November 2009.
The New Horizons International Competition - the main part of the festival - is a review of 14 pre-selected films which define the development directions of contemporary cinema. The competition's formula assumes a diversity of conventions - from feature films, through creative documentaries and animations, to experimental projects. The competition entries are full-length films which have not been shown in Poland at any public screening. This year the competition includes Mock Up on Mu, a recent example of found-footage cinema, a narrative collage by artist and performer Craig Baldwin compiled from fragments of commercial sci-fi films from the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, Spyder, an experimental portrait of a woman which Japanese artist Ishibashi Kiyomi made with a mobile phone, and the famous film debut of British visual artist Steve McQueen, an award-winner at last year's Cannes festival - Hunger. There will be a Polish element as well - one of the entries is Russian director Ivan Vyrypaev's Oxygen - a film featuring Polish actress
Karolina Gruszka. This is a screen adaptation of Vyrypaev's controversial play, a portrait of people smothered by everyday reality. Above all, it is a parable about the ineffectual search for real life, emotions, God, in other words - the oxygen of the title. The prizes in the New Horizons competition are the Grand Prix for the best film, awarded by an international jury, the Film Critics' Award from an international panel of critics, and the Audience Award.
Iwan Wyrypajew, "Oxygen" | Craig Baldwin, "Mock up on Mu" |
A new addition at this year's festival is the International Competition of Films About Art, presenting 14 full-length auteur documentaries inspired by art. These will include pictures documenting artistic trends and portraying inspiring artists. The competition of films about art is open to forms such as docu-fiction, paradocs, mockumentaries, video-performances, and creative documentaries. The programme includes an autobiographical collage by Agnès Vardy, Les plages d'Agnès (The Beaches of Agnes), and Rembrandt's J'accuse...! by Peter Greenaway in which the director returns once more - after his latest film Nightwatching - to Rembrandt's 1642 painting The Night Watch, to show the illiteracy of contemporary culture, its inability to code signs so well any more, to store premonitions, to conceal passions.
The European Short Films Competition is a proposal for young, creative directors, both independent filmmakers and students of film and art schools. All entries are debuts no longer than 20 minutes, made after 1 January 2008. This competition is divided into three sections - documentaries, feature films, and animated films, a separate prize being awarded in each category.
Agnès Varda, "The Beaches of Agnes" | Peter Greenaway, "Rembrandt's J'accuse...!" |
The New Polish Films Competition has been designed as a presentation of Polish full-length features, animated films, documentaries, and experimental productions as well as projects by Polish filmmakers produced abroad. It is an alternative to other Polish competitions where the prizes often go to conventional films. This is a space where audiences and filmmakers together create the meanings of Polish cinema, where trends, phenomena, and values are discussed. The competition entries are full-length premieres as well as productions whose festival or cinematic premiere took place after 31 July 2008. They include
Małgorzata Szumowska's 33 sceny z życia / 33 Scenes From Life,
Jan Jakub Kolski's Afonia i pszczoły / Afonia and the Bees,
Jerzy Skolimowski's Cztery noce z Anną / Four Nights With Anna, Maciej Pieprzyca's Drzazgi / Splinters, Katarzyna Rosłaniec's
Galerianki, Jacek Bławut's
Jeszcze nie wieczór / Before Twilight,
Piotr Dumała's Las / The Forest, Michał Rosa's
Rysa / Scratch,
Xawery Żuławski's Wojna polsko-ruska / Snow White and the Russian Red.
The Panorama of World Cinema cycle presents films by masters as well as new discoveries - specially selected films which have won awards at major international film festivals. The Panorama is divided into two sections. Films by famous directors are shown in the master section. The discovery section presents productions by new, talented filmmakers.
Reviews of national film industries are a tradition of the festival. This year, audiences will get the opportunity to see films from Sweden (including films about Ingmar Bergman), Canada, Hungary.
This year's presentation of new Swedish cinema was prepared in association with the Swedish Film Institute. The young generation of filmmakers, whose films have started achieving significant successes, is gaining prominence in Sweden. "Travelling" through cool Swedish towns and villages, in a mood of intimacy, audiences will be able to feel their potential for creating unreal worlds. The urban Himlens Hjärta (Heaven's Heart) by Simon Staho, firmly rooted in Swedish cultural tradition, uses a purist style to show two couples on the verge of a marital crisis. In the emotionally hostile world of a council estate, Oscar - the protagonist of Tomas Alfredsson's Let the Right One In - falls in love with a special young girl who turns out to be a vampire. The 10-year-old heroine of Fredrik Edfeldt's Flickan lives in a house in the middle of nowhere and has to fend for herself in her parents' absence. Her journey from childhood into adulthood will be painful. Jan Troell is one of the great Swedish classics. His artistic versatility has gained him the reputation of a "total artist" - he is the director, screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor of his films. Valued and respected in Sweden, a maker of great epic tales, he is mentioned in one breath with Bergman and Widerberg. Despite the position he has won for himself in Sweden and around the world, Troell remains little-known in Poland. Era New Horizons will present his greatest works in a retrospective of his output. The programme also includes Troell's latest film, Everlasting Moments (Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick, 2007), which the critics hailed as the best Swedish film of 2008. Jan Troell will also be a guest of the festival.
Denys Arcand, "Stardom"
Canadian cinema, condemned in a way to obscurity due to the proximity of Hollywood, can boast just a few widely known names. Productions by filmmakers such as David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, and Denys Arcand are fairly well known. This year the opportunity presents itself to get a closer look at Canadian cinema - thanks to a review of 20 of the latest Canadian films made after 2000, including films about the life and customs of native Canadians.
Films for children and teenagers are selected carefully and supplemented with art workshops. This year's festival presentation of films for children and youngsters features productions from Sweden.
Tsai Ming-Liang, "A Conversation with God"
For more information and a detailed programme, visit
www.enh.pl.
Era New Horizons International Film Festival
ul. Zamenhofa 1, 00-153 Warszawa
phone: (+48 22) 530 66 40
fax: (+48 22) 831 06 63
www.eranowehoryzonty.pl